
Class. 






Book. 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



THE NATIONS 
AT WAR 



BY 

WILLIS J. ABBOT 

AUTHOR OK 

" PANAMA AND THE CANAL," "THE STORY OF 

OUR NAVY," "THE STORY OK OUR ARMY" 



WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS 
BY THE FOREMOST WAR ARTISTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS 
TAKEN IN THE FIELD BY EXPERTS OF EVERY NATION 



THE 1917 EDITION 



LESLIE-JUDGE CO. 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



3H5-22 

M 
W1 



Copyright, ioij, 
DoUDLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

All Rights Reserved 



/ 

•JAN -5 1917 



>CI.A455011 



INTRODUCTION 

FOR YEARS wise men had said that there could be no general European 
war. Despite the menace of rival armaments they thought that the finan- 
cial ties which bound all nations together were stronger than the polit- 
ical differences which tended to bring them into conflict. The tremendous 
power of international capital and credit exerted in every land and oper- 
ating as a unit would certainly check any wasteful war. The bankers 
controlling the money and credit of the world would suppress the war-like 
ambitions of the crowned heads by locking up their strong-boxes. 

So the wise men thought. But the event showed the bankers bowing low 
to the will of Kaiser, King, Emperor, and President. Not only did they lend 
more than twenty billions to the belligerents in the first two years of the war, 
but stood ready to lend more and more — for a price. 

The world thought public opinion would check the war at the outset. 
Nobody wanted war — except these in high place who alone had the power to 
make or to avert it. But before public opinion could be expressed the invad- 
ing columns were on the march, the guns were thundering and the heavy hand 
of military authority stilled any sound of public protest. 

Men thought there would be no war because International Socialism would 
reduce the belligerent governments to impotence. For years the world had 
been told that the cause of labor was international, that the workingman's 
struggle against capitalism was the same in France as in Germany, in Italy 
as in Austria. With this greater warfare in progress, involving the well-being 
of the workingmen of all the world, no working man would be deluded into 
taking up arms against his fellows who happened to speak a different tongue 
or render fealty to a foreign state. 

But at the test the internationalism of labor vanished as had the inter- 
nationalism of capital. 

A long war was impossible, we were told, because the greater destructive- 
ness of modern weapons would make it impossible for human beings to sus- 
tain the shock of conflict. Every inventor of a new and peculiarly effective 
device for wholesale murder, for long time past, had been assuring the world 
that his first thought in inventing it had been to make war so horrible, so 
ruinous, that it would be abandoned in horror. 

War, thereupon, responded to this theory by stimulating the invention 
of, and eagerly using asphyxiating gas, liquid fire, lachrymal bombs, armored 
tractors that crushed the wounded in their path while mowing down platoons 
of men with their perfectly protected machine guns. Aircraft were per- 
fected — mainly that they might rain bombs upon inoffensive civilians; 



INTRODUCTION 

hospitals and schools being favorite targets. The submarine was de- 
veloped to a point that outdid the imagination of Jules Verne and was 
employed largely to sink helpless merchantmen, often with utter disregard 
for the lives of their passengers whether belligerent or neutral. 

One by one the forces which the world had relied upon to avert the calamity 
of a general war were swept away. The ties of finance, of commerce, of 
mutual interest, of common humanity, even of a common religion were broken. 
One War Lord, most vociferous of all in the claim that God was especially 
enlisted under his eagles, did not scruple to ally his Christian nation with the 
lurk, and exerted every influence to stir up all Islam to waging a Holy War 
on the Christian peoples of the world. 

The lessons of this war should be political, not military. The world should 
learn not how to make perfect the art of devastating countries and slaughtering 
enemies but how to prevent the need, or the excuse for either. 

Decades will be required even to partially obliterate the scars of conflict 
from ravaged Belgium, France, and Poland. Centuries will not lift from the 
shoulders of the people the burden of taxation this frenzied outbreak has laid 
upon them. But the scars might be made honorable memorials of a march 
upward to a higher international ideal, the debt be gloried in. as a burden 
incurred in a struggle for the ultimate good of the human race, if out of this 
war could come an effective movement to end all future wars. 

Only by a league of all civilized nations can such an end be attained. With- 
out the participation of the United States such an association would be in- 
complete and impotent. But, it is urged, the entrance of the United States 
upon such an alliance would be to abandon the historic policy of the nation, 
thus first enunciated by George Washington: "It is our policy to steer clear 
of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." 

But the world has changed since Washington's day. The old isolation of 
the United States is ended. Oceans have become highways instead of bar- 
riers. The interests of all nations are inextricably interwoven. While a few of 
our people have profited by supplying food and munitions to the allies, the 
great mass has suffered by the enormous increase in the cost of living due to 
the war. Our interest in a long and enduring peace to come is a very real and 
positive one. 

In the remaining months of the war — and may they be few! — the thoughts 
of the American people should be concentrated upon the best method of 
preventing any recurrence in future time of so calamitous a conflict. They 
must grapple with new conditions in a new way. If concerted and permanent 
action on the part of all, or a considerable group of nations, promises such a 
result America must not, by too great loyalty to an outworn creed, be lack- 
ing to it. Of all nations of the world we are not the one to "attempt the 
future's portal with the past's blood rusted key." 

Willis J. Abbot. 

New York, Oct., 1916. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS 
AT WAR, 




CHAPTER I 

ASSASSINATION OF ARCHDUKE FERDINAND — DIPLOMACY PRECEDING 
THE WAR POSITION AND RELATIVE STRENGTH OF THE POWERS 




tnot. 

newspapers 
said it was 
the latest 
outcome of 
the curse 
upon the 
House of 
Hapsburg— 
^^^^^^^ m that sinis- 
England's young- ter maledic- 

trst Volunteer 11 J 

tion called 
clown upon Emperor Fran- 
cis Joseph by the Countess 
Karolyi, whose son had 
been slain by his orders: 

"May heaven and hell 
blast your happiness. May 
your family be exterminated. 
May you be smitten in the 
persons of th osc yo u love best. 
May your children be 
brought to rum and your 
life :rrecked, and may you 
live in lonely, unbroken, 



N A dismal little town of 
Bosnia, by name Sarajevo and 
by repute hardly known to the 
civilized world, on the 28th 
of June, 1914. the Archduke 
Francis Ferdinand, heir to the 
imperial crown of Austria- 
Hungary, was shot dead by a 
boy who thought himself a 
Servian pa- 

The 1 




Belgian soldier, interned in Holland, finds the 
Dutch friendly 



horrible grief, to tremble when you hear the name 
of Karolyi." 

So, indeed, it befell the Hapsburgs, from 
Maximilian dying before Mexican guns 
amidst the ruins of his fancied empire, to 
Ferdinand slam in that obscure Bosnian 
capital. But the curse has fallen heaviest on 
the innocent peoples of Europe, and the 
murder of Ferdinand has made bloody an- 
swer to Disraeli's comfor- 
table maxim, "Assassina- 
tion never yet changed the 
history of the world." 

However; the assassina- 
tion of the Archduke was 
but the spark that touched 
off an inevitable explosion, 
\ he materials for that out- 
burst had long been ready 
to hand, had been piling 
up in fact ever since Prus- 
sia appeared as a domina- 
ting factor in European 
politics. The clash of na- 
tional ambitions, the ever- 
increasing tension between 
European nations, each in- 
tent to a greater or less 
degree upon its own aggran- 
dizement, but with Ger- 
many most aggressiveof all, 
made this war inevitable. 

Briefly summarized 
these rival ambitions were 
as follows: 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The Germans and Slavs whose racial antipathies and conflicting territorial and commercial 
ambitions were largely responsible for the war. It will be noticed that the Slavic peoples 
far overlap the political boundaries even in Eastern Germany 




The Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir apparent to the 
throne of Austria-Hungary, whose murder was the starting- 
point of the war 



Under the masterful 
rule of William II the 
governing class in Ger- 
many had come to as- 
pire to dominance over 
all of central Europe. 
They aimed at an ex- 
tension of the German 
Empire proper to the 
English Channel, ab- 
sorbing by steps more 
or less gradual Bel- 
gium, Holland, and 
Denmark. With this 
outlet to the sea they 
determined to chal- 
lenge Great Britain's 
maritime supremacy 
both by the creation 
of a naval fleet that 
would equal that of the 
British and by building 
up a merchant marine 
that might challenge 
the primacy of British 
merchant shipping. To 
the southward, utiliz- 
ing the close alliance of 
the houses of Hohenzol- 
lernand the Austrian ruling house of Hapsburg, 
they planned to extend German influence to the 
Mediterranean by the gradual absorption of 
the western Balkan states and Turkey. This 
plan of empire contemplated immediately this 
extension of the empire of Austria-Hungary 
and its domination by the methods of German 
diplomacy. But that the far-seeing eye and 
active imagination of William II unquestion- 
ably looked forward to the time when the 
diminishing house of Hapsburg should finallv 
disappear, and the southern half of this Teu- 
tonic alliance should become wholly German, 
indeed Prussian, in its government, is un- 
doubted. 

Naturally this plan of expansion, worthy of 
Frederick the Great or of Napoleon, instantly 
aroused the suspicion and antagonism of 
Great Britain, Russia, and France. For 
years, therefore, indeed ever since the end of 
the Franco-Prussian war of 1 870-1, these 
powers had been opposing the Germanic 
pretensions by every device of diplomacy, and 
had steadily prepared themselves for this con- 
flict by building up those prodigious arma- 
ments afloat and ashore which had made 
Europe an armed camp. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



England, which was 
in fact last to enter 
upon this conflict, was 
the one most gravely 
menaced by the Ger- 
man program, tor 
that empire with its 
nucleus and governing 
centre in the British 
Isles is scattered over 
the four quarters of the 
globe. It is dependent 
for its coherence, even 
for its very life, upon 
its absolute control of 
the sea. The people of 
England and Scotland 
in time of actual war 
could live scarcely a 
week upon the food 
supplies in their pos- 
session should the car- 
riage of foodstuffs from 
other lands to their 
shores be interrupted 
bv a hostile fleet su- 
perior to their own. Moreover, then rule 
in India and in Australasia would be seriously 
menaced by the presence at the eastern end of 
the Mediterranean of so militant a power as 
Germany. The growing evidence 01 the 
character of the German menace had been 
apparent to Great Britain for two decades or 
more. The actual, overt act which com- 
pelled the British entrance upon the war was, 
however, the advance of the Germans through 
Belgium to a threatening position on the 
coast. 

France, which at the date of this writing 
has suffered more than any nation involved 
in the war, save little Belgium, had less in- 
terest in the conflict than any of the Allies. 
True, any growth in power of her implacable 
enemy was a menace. But her sentimental 
desire, cherished ever since 1871, for the 
recovery of her lost provinces ot Alsace- 
Lorraine was obviously dying out. Mainly 
loyalty to her alliance with Russia, coupled 
with a dread of the further enhancement of 
German power on the Continent, drew her 
into the struggle in which of all the allied 
nations she won the brightest laurels. 

More than any other the Russians' ambi- 
tions clashed with the German and Austrian 
advance to the south. With her northern 
ports on the Baltic and Arctic Ocean locked 




\ "".tit 
hf "i XS'"' s e r v 1 a\ 

=S %^\\ Xion t EX J BULGARIA 



The intricate racial distribution in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy 

by ice for a large portion of the year and her 
southern borders opening only on the Black 




Emperor Franci 
arch 



Joscpl 
was a 



vhose long rule over the dual mon- 
:lcome one to his people 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Belgium's most flourishing business. There is a world of 
pathos in the sign, "Mourning Complete in 12 Hours." 




French troops respond to cheering crowds. In every village the crowds gathered around the rail 
station to cheer and applaud the men who were on their way to die for "La Belle France' 



Sea blocked by Turkish cannon at the Dar- 
danelles, this mighty empire has for centuries 
been striving to secure an outlet to navigable 
waters open the year around. It sought this 
path to the Mediterranean by way of the 
Balkan states. The Slavs of Servia, Bos- 
nia, Roumania, Bulgaria, were kin by blood 
and allied by customs to the Russian people. 
Russian ascendancy in their politics gave 
assurance ot their ultimate complete domina- 
tion by some future Czar. Could they jointly 
throw off the Turkish voke and expel the 
Turks from Europe the Russian way to the 
Mediterranean would be clear. In 1912 
this ambition bade fair to be gratified. 
For the Balkan states declared war upon 
Turkey and won a swift victory, carrying 
their armies to the very doors of Constanti- 
nople. At this juncture the Germanic pow- 
ers intervened. The Turkish armies had 
been trained and officered by Germans. 
English influence at Constantinople, which 
had been dominant for a century, had been 
shattered by the diplomats ot the Kaiser. 
At the critical moment Austria backed by 
German power intervened, robbing the Bal- 
kan states of the fruits of their victory, and 
particularly denying to Servia the right of 
access to the Adriatic Sea. To block this 
route the Teutonic powers insisted on the 
creation of the state of Albania under a 
German prince. 
Thereupon the 
, Balkan states fell 

to fighting among 
themselves, and 
the greater states 
of Europe, fore- 
seeing that out of 
this situation 
would grow a 
general war, be- 
gan their prepara- 
tions for it. 

It is significant 
that immediately 
after her interfer- 
ence in the Bal- 
kans Germany 
passed a new 
army law so in- 
creasing her 
military estab- 
lishment as to give 
it a preponder- 
ance of 30 per 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



cent, over the trained forces in France. 
France with a far smaller population and 
all available men already under arms met 
this by increasing her term of military ser- 
vice from two years to three. Great Bri- 
tain continued to place her reliance solely 
on her fleet, neglecting any development ot 
her army, a course which she had bitter cause 
to regret in the early years of the great war. 

It was therefore the resentment of Servia 
at having been balked of the fruit of its vic- 
tories in the Balkan war that caused the as- 
sassination which brought on the later general 
conflict. A large part of the subjects of the 
empire of Austria-Hungary, those in the 
southern half bordering on Servia, are them- 
selves Slavs eager to throw off the Hapsburg 
yoke and sympathetic with the aspirations 
of their Servian neighbors. The house ot 
Hapsburg had become concentrated in the 
persons of the Emperor Francis Joseph, al- 
ready approaching the senility of advanced 
years, and his heir the Archduke Ferdinand. 
All Europe had long believed that the death 
of the old Emperor would be the signal for a 
general war. The Servian plotters conceived 
the idea that if the only apparent successor 
to the Emperor were killed this war would be 
assured, and out of the general breakup of 
states they might pluck their own independ- 
ence, unite with the Slavs of Hungarv, 
outlet to the 




and regain their 
Out of this hope 
sprang the assas- 
sination of the 
Archduke. 

Austria incensed 
at the murder of 
its heir apparent 
made demands 
upon Servia for 
redress. For a 
month these de- 
mands were 
pressed greatly to 
the disquiet of the 
chancelleries of all 
Europe, but not 
so openly, nor yet 
so strenuously, as 
to cause public ap- 
prehension of a 
me nace to the 
general peace of 
Europe. It has 
been shown since 



Adi 



Better than being captured. About 20,000 Belgian soldiers 
got across the border into Holland when Antwerp was evacu- 
ated, and were there disarmed by the Dutch army and placed 
in camps 




h.nidish intantry 



transtormed into grim determination 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The Teutonic dream of a pan-Germanic empire with outlet: 

terranean seas 

that the thirty days occupied in secret 
and underground diplomacy was also utilized 
by the two Teutonic powers to make hurried 
preparations for the war which they unques- 
tionably intended to force. On the 28th of 
June the assassina- 
tion was committed. 
On the 23d of July 
the government at 
Vienna sent to the 
government at Bel- 
grade an ultimatum 
of a sort hitherto 
unknown to civilized 
diplomacy. Itprac- 
ticallydemanded the 
surrender of Servian 
sovereignty and the 
installation cf Aus- 
trian magistrates in 
Servian courts to try 
and condemn Ser- 
vian subjects and 
officers at the plea- 
sure of the Austrian 
government. Forty- 
eight hours only was 

allowed for a res- British reservists arriving a 



ponse to this de- 
mand, and al- 
though the 
Servian govern- 
ment conceded 
nine-tenths of the 
points at issue, 
Austria, backed 
by G e r m a n y , 
swept aside all the 
ef f o rts ofthe 
other powers of 
Europe to inter- 
vene in behalf of 
peace and de- 
clared war upon 
Servia on the 27th 
of July. Russia 
thereupon, hav- 
ing already de- 
clared that it 
would not permit 
war to be made 
upon Servia on 
" a mere pretext," 
declared war upon 
Austria. 

Thereaftei 
every effort to stay the spread of the con- 
flagration was in vain. At every point Ger- 
man influence blocked negotiations for 
peace. Austria, indeed when she found that 
Russia could not be kept out of the con- 



upon the Baltic, North, and Medi 




miorms and arms 



THE NATIONS 

flict, expressed li X^ 

herself as willing 
to take up nego- 
tiations with 
Petrograd al- 
though the guns 
were already roar- 
ing along the Ser- 
vian border. But 
this chance of 
peace was blocked 
by Germany, 
which presented 
on the very next 
day an ultimatum 
to Russia and to 
France. Sir 
Edward Grey, the 
English Foreign 
Secretary, tried 
until the last mo- 
ment to secure an 
international con- 
ference for the 
maintenance of 
peace, but was 
blocked by the 

entrance of the German forces into the Duchy 
of Luxemburg, the neutrality of which had 
been guaranteed by all the powers of Europe, 
including Germany herself. After this it 
was a matter of hours only before all Europe 
was at war. 



AT WAR 




jssia s conflicting 




German officers lunching on the spoils of Liege 



•mpire, including the Slav and Scandinavian peoples 

England, last of the embattled powers to 
go into the fight, might possibly have been 
held neutral save for the German invasion of 
Belgium. That state, together with the 
Netherlands to the north of it, had been 
created and maintained as "buffer" states 
by a general agree- 
ment of European 
powers. Its neu- 
trality was guaran- 
teed. So far as 
solemn engage- 
ments on the part 
of sovereign powers 
could secure it Bel- 
gium was to be held 
free from all danger 
of invasion, to be 
kept sheltered from 
the shock of war. 
To this agreement 
Prussia, prior to the 
formation of the 
German empire, had 
been a party, and as 
the ruling member 
of that group of 
states was still 
bound by it. None 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Czar Nicholas and King George V., royal cousins with a long-standing colonial rivalry and divergent political beliefs, 
drawn together in an unexpected alliance 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Motor trucks proved invaluable in drawing heavy siege guns and sup- 
plies more rapidly than it would have been possible with horses 



the less the advantage of rushing upon France 
through an almost powerless state and attack- 
ing the greater nation on a frontier that had 
been left unfortified was too much for the Ger- 
man sense of honor. That part of the French 
frontier which faced Germany was a line of 



powerful fortresses. Verdun, Toul, Epinal, 
and Belfort reared sinister fronts in the face 
of a German invader. We know now that 
the superiority of the German artillery at 
the opening of the war would have enabled 
them at that time to demolish these fortresses 




A British ammunition train halted on the road for lunch 




hrough the Brandenburg Gate down Unter Den Linden to the Imperial Residence 




William II of Germany, who forged that nation's magnificent fighting machine and directed the campaign which astonished 
the world by its power and swift movement 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



•> 



as easily as they did 
those at Liege and at 
Namur. But at the 
moment the Germans, 
with cynical indiffer- 
ence to their treaty ob- 
ligations, chose what 
they thought was the 
easier way. It proved 
in the end to be the 
harder way. For ex- 
cept for the invasion 
of Belgium it is pos- 
sible, even probable, 
that England might 
not have entered the 
war. "You surely 
would not fight for a 
mere scrap of paper?" 
said the German Am- 
bassador to Sir Edward 
Grey, but England did 
fight and for that con- 
crete reason, though it 





Going to war in motor busses. When the order for mobilization was issued the French government seized all the automobiles, 
horses and motor busses it could lay its hands on, to assist in the transport of troops 



i6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




respected and f 

is entirely probable that more selfish con- 
siderations, having to do with German ambi- 
tions for high standing on the sea and for a 
foothold on the North Sea and Mediter- 
ranean shores were also influential factors 
in forming the British conclusions. 

So in a few days Austria had de- M 
clared war upon Servia, Russia upon /] 
Austria, Germany upon Russia 
and France, France upon Ger 
many and Austria, and Englam 
upon the two Teutonic powers 
The whole structure of 
European government went 



down like a row of card houses and into the 
general turmoil far-off Japan, England's 
ally in Asiatic waters, cast her defiance of 
German power, and the guns were roaring 
on the borders of the German colony of Kiao- 
chau, almost as soon as they were on the 
borders of Belgium. 

Almost had the German Em- 
peror paralleled in this tw r en- 
I tieth century the situation 
created nearly two 
undred years earlier 
y his famous pro- 
enitor Frederick 




The French aeroplane in its automobile conveyance. Of all the warring nations, France was best supplied with aerial craft 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



'7 




British field artillery, brought to .1 high point of effici 

the Great and described by Macaulay in this 
famous passage: 

"On the head of Frederic is all the blood 
which was shed in a war raged during many 
years and in every quarter of the globe — 
the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the 
blood of the mountaineers who were slaught- 



ered at Culloden. The evils produced by 
his wickedness were felt in lands where the 
name of Prussia was unknown; and, in order 
that he might rob a neighbor whom he had 
promised to defend, black men fought on the 
coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each 
other bv the Great Lakes of North America." 




French troops before Altkirch. The French invasi 

roused treat enthusiasm in France 



01 licrman tcmton al 
Altkirch, in Alsace, wa 



stui, but it. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




It is significant of the defer- 
ence which belligerent govern- 
ments pay to the wide-spread 
sentiment for peace, and par- 
ticularly to public opinion in 
neutral lands, that for months 
after the outbreak of the war 
each country engaged in it was 
eagerly protesting that the con- 
flict had been forced upon it 
and that it could not be charged 
with being the aggressor. The 
presses of all Europe were 
busied with putting out 
"White Books," "Red Books," 
"Orange Books," and other 
diplomatic documents named 
by the public in accordance 
with the colors of their covers 
and each intended to demon- 
strate the innocence of the na- 
tion issuing it. Germany, upon 
which neutral condemnation 
rested most heavily, because 
the marvelous swiftness with 
which it struck suggested per- 
fect preparation and early de- 
termination for war, was par- 
ticularly insistent that the war 
had been forced upon it and 
was fought in self-defense only. 
But this position the German 
diplomats were never able to 
establish to the satisfaction of 
neutral public opinion. Later 
developments, however, made 
it appear that Germany had 
not expected up to the very 
last moment that England 
would fight. In the last inter- 



Belgian cavalry bringing straw to sleep on in the trenches 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



i9 



view between the German Am- 
bassador and Sir Edward Grey, 
the British Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, the former was told that 
if Belgian territory was violated 
England might enter the war. 
It seems possible that had the 
British statesman stated bluntly 
that in such event England 
would enter the war Germany 
might have receded from her 
truculent position and the f right- 
ful conflict would have been 
averted. For the final declara- 
tion of war was received bv the 
German government with every 
indication that it was wholly 
unexpected. 

It seemed at the outset that 
the odds were overwhelmingly 
against the Teutonic allies. The 
mere statement or the problem 
looks wholly one-sided. Against 
Germany and Austria-Hungary, 
at the outset, were arrayed 
Russia, France, Great Britain, 
Belgium, Japan, and Servia. 
Against a population of 
114,900,000 were arrayed na- 
tions numbering 322,500,000. 
In the estimate of the latter are 
not included the teeming mil- 
lions of British India though 
they furnished the allied forces 
with tens of thousands of gal- 
lant soldiers. 

Against the German and 
Austrian navy was pitted the 
British navy, vastly superior to 
both combined, as well as the 




upland collects horses. The great necessity for horses for the 

resulted in the war department taking them wherever found. 

ni remise, paid for, but the owners had no option about 



British Army 
They were, 
selling 




Belgian infantry defending a village near Liege 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 




floating forces of Russia, 
France, and Japan, which com- 
bined might be fairly held 
superior to those of Germany. 
In military force the disparity between the 
two groups of belligerents was at the outset 
less apparent. Germany was admittedly 
the foremost military nation of the world. 
Her equipment for war was unequalled by 
any nation or group of nations. Every 
endeavor of an inventive and an efficient 
people had been bent to the task of making 
the German army the most magnificent 
fighting machine known to history. In 
the newer devices of Zeppelins, aeroplanes, 
military motors, new and prodigious types 




of field artil- 
lery, the Ger- 
man superior- 
ity was incalcu- 
lable. 

In the mere 
number of 
soldiers trained 
to arms the two 
belligerentbod- 
ies were nearly 
matched. The 
comparative 
figures as they 
stood at the opening of the war may be put 
in round numbers as follows: 



The hour of farewell. British soldier 
saying good-bye to his wife and child 




King George inspecting a portion of the British expeditionary force 



22 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



*3 



THE TEUTONIC ALLIES 

Germany, Standing Army . . 800,000 

War Footing . . . 4,000,000 

Austria-Hungary, Standing Army 472,000 

War footing . 1,360,000 

Maximum war strength 4,320,000 

ENTENTE ALLIES 

Great Britain, Standing Army 
First Reserve 
Second Reserve 
Total trained men 

France, Standing Army . 
First Reserve 
Second Reserve . 
Total trained men 

Russia, Standing Army . 
First Reserve 
Second Reserve . 
Total trained men 



125,000 
206,000 
463,000 
794,000 

750,000 

700,000 

700,000 

2,150,000 

1,073,000 

1,838,500 
2,488,500 

5,400,000 



To the allied force should be added the 
Servian army which on a peace footing 
numbered 160,000, and on a war footing 
380,000. As a result of the almost constant 
war in the Balkans these troops were prac- 
tically all veterans. With them, too, are to 
be counted the Belgian army with a peace 
strength of about 50,000 men and a war 
strength of 340,000. The Belgian troops 
were w T ell armed, but by their heroic effort 
to stop the invasion of their neutral countrv 
they sacrificed at the very outset practically 
the whole of their army on a peace footing 
to the overwhelming strength of the German 
invaders. Furthermore, the swiftness with 
which the Germans overran and subdued 
the greater part of Belgian territory made 
it impossible to call to the colors all of 
the men constituting the army on a war foot- 
ing. 

As the war progressed, and as the result 
of diplomatic plots and counter plots, Tur- 
key and Bulgaria, both nations of notable 
military strength with armies well trained 




A pontoon bridge destroyed by British shell fire while (ierman Uhlans were crossing 



24 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



under German officers and made up of nat- 
ural fighters of notorious ferocity, cast their 
lot with the Teutonic allies, while Italy, 
Roumania and Portugal joined forces with 
the entente allies, as the British, French, and 
Russian forces were termed. 
In the case of Portugal the 
declaration of war upon Ger- 
many was purely formal as 
her forces took no part in the 
struggle until late in the war. 

The apparent odds against the Teutons 
were, however, more apparent than real. 
They had at the beginning the incomparable 
advantage of having their forces in a state 
of complete preparation and their plan of 
campaign thoroughly worked out. The effi- 
ciency of their military strategy was enor- 
mously increased by the fact that their 
armies were under a single dominating 
mind, for leadership was early conceded 
by the Austrians to the German mili 
tary authority. It may be noted here 
that during the first two years of 
the war whenever the Austrians 
alone were left to combat the 
Russian advance they 
were beaten. It was 
only when German 
troops were hastily 
withdrawn from the 
western theatre of war and 
sent to the Austrian aid 
that the progress of Rus- 
sia was blocked. This Ger- 
man domination of all the 
Teutonic forces was obvi- 
ously an advantage when 
contrasted with the almost 
complete independence of 
the Russian military au- 
thority from any domina- 
tion by, or even association 
with, the British and French 
allies. 

Geographical conditions 
were even more advanta- 
geous for the Teutons. 
Their territory was con- 
tiguous, compact. Where 
it took weeks for the Bri- 
tish and Fren h to get into 

physicalcontact with the ^ gun weigh 
their allies the Russians, the over , 6 poun( j s 
Germans and Austrians strong man can US( 

Were in actual contact at like an ordinary rifl 





all times. If the allied line was 
menaced in Flanders it was a 
matter of utter impossibil- 
ity to bring to its assistance 
any reenforcement from the 
enormous armies of Russia. 
Indeed it was not until 
near the end of the 
second year of the war 
that Russian troops 
figured at all in the 
struggle in western 
Europe. 

But if the Germans were 
menaced by Russian troops 
in eastern Prussia or the Austrians facing 
disaster in Galicia, troops could be drawn 
from the German lines in Belgium or France 
and hurried to the point of peril by a day's 
travel along railroads wholly within protected 
German territory. The situation was not 
unlike that presented in our own Civil War, 
during its earlier years, when the Confederates 
could easily rush troops from Virginia to 
Tennessee or back again as need arose with- 
out any possible interference on the part of 
the Union generals. This advantage of a 
shorter line and interior communications is 
recognized by strategists as of the highest 
value to the belligerent enjoying it. 

In any consideration of the comparative 
strength of the rival belligerent forces the 
fact of Great Britain's enormous reserve 
force must be considered. At the outset 
England had to oppose to the resistless force 
of the German armies a scant 125,000 regular 
troops, and the record of that gallant handful 
doomed to early extinction is glorious enough 
to make a story of its own. But by the end 
of the second year of the war England had 
put into the field more than 4,500,000 men, 
though the greater part of these had then just 
become available for service. Delay in 
enlistment, the time necessary to turn raw 
recruits into skilled soldiers, the herculean 
task of gathering the units of its force from 
Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and In- 
dia, and above all the difficulty of securing 
arms and munitions, which British factories 
were utterly inadequate to supply, made the 
British entry upon actual land hostilities 
seem to be both grudging and dilatory. It 
w r as the failure, as we shall see, of the Germans 
to press their first drive into France to the 
point of actual victory, before the prodigious 
latent strength of Great Britain could be 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



-5 




The Lewis Air-Cooled Machine (iun. 
The " Belgian rattlesnake." This name was given the Lewis gun because of its spiteful whit when tiring at high speed 

brought into action, that determined the Like the people of the United States the 

final outcome of the war. British people have always been jealous of a 

The difficulty which the British found in great standing army. The troops they had 

raising and equipping an army adequate to at the outbreak of the storm in 1914 were 

meet the situation forced upon them should be onlv enough to man the military posts in 

most instructive to the people of the United their widely scattered colonial dependencies. 

States. Like our own government, Great Bri- They were good troops, none better. In the 

tain is a democracy. It has the forms of mon- first six months of the war practically every 

archy but is in some respects even more man of them was killed or otherwise put out 

democratic than the United States. The ulti- of action. When the French sprang nobly 

mate consent of the people is necessary to any to arms, a united nation in the field, Great 

Britain could send as 



such military establish- 
ment as the crisis of 
1914 demanded. For 
centuries the English 
people had relied upon 
their navy as a com- 
plete defence against 
any menace from with- 
out. This, too, has 
been the attitude of 
the people of the 
United States who are 
accustomed to regard 
the broad oceans that 
separate us from any 
possible enemy as ob- 
stacles to possible in 
vasion. As a matter of 
fact to-day the ocean 
is a highway across 
which troops can be 
more readily trans- 
ported than they could 
across one-fifth the dis- 
tance ashore. 





,!N ACTION 



The forts at Liege. The fortifications : 
planned by the Belgian engineer General Brialmont. One 
of theit most effective features was the disappeating tur- 
rets, in which the guns were mounted 



its share of the line 
which blocked the Ger- 
man advance only 
125,000 men. The 
first and most serious 
task which confronted 
the government was 
to add to this little 
fighting force an army 
which should rank with 
the 3, 500,000 of France 
and the more than 
4,000,000 of Germany. 
To accomplish this 
task Lord Kitchener, 
the victor of Khar- 
toum, was summoned 
from retirement to be- 
come Minister of War. 
It took eight months 
for him to raise and 
equip the first 750,000 
men which the English 
called Kitchener's 



26 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



army, and the Germans, "Kitchener's mob." 
In a way it was a mob, for its component 
parts were drawn from all the widely scat- 
tered outposts of British power. Canada in 
particular was magnificent in its contribu- 




The German army in Belgium. The armed hosts of the Kaiser 
vest, when the wheat had been cut but was 

tions of men for the defence of the empire, 
and among the troops it sent was an "Ameri- 
can Legion " composed of citizens of the United 
States who had enlisted, of course, without the 
knowledge or consent of their own government. 
Australia and New Zealand, the multitudinous 
tribes of India, residents of the British 



African colonies were all represented in this 
first army of volunteers. 

But even that army was inadequate to the 
need of the nation. As the other nations 
had given all their citizens to the defence of 
the common 
cause it was 
asked why Great 
Britain gave 
only the few who 
were willing to 
volunteer. A 
cry for conscrip- 
tion and univer- 
sal service was 
raised. It was 
opposed, hon- 
estly enough, by 
laborunionswho 
in every country 
complain that it 
is the working- 
man who fights 
and the capital- 
ist who reaps all 
the profit. It 
also incurred the 
hostility of those 
who dreaded lest 
with the aban- 
donment of the 
long-time volun- 
teer system Eng- 
land should fall 
a prey to the mil- 
it ari s m whi ch 
had proved such 
a burden to con- 
tinental Europe. 
Lord Derby 
made a magnifi- 
cent attempt by 
systematic re- 
c r u i t i n g en- 
deavors to meet 
the needs of the 
situation, but 
finally theory 
had to give way 
to the desperate menace of the situation and 
a qualified system of conscription was put 
into effect. By this method the British were 
able to put into the field, by the middle of 
1916, an army that totaled about 4,000,000. 

To arm and equip this force was more 
than the manufacturing facilities of Great 



poured into Belgium during the har 
still in the fields 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



^7 



Britain were equal to. Like France and this country delayed and rifled, and our ships 
Russia the British found it necessary to buy held up sometimes for weeks. The resent- 
huge quantities of arms and munitions in the ment of Germany against America for supply- 
United States. Their orders were gladly ac- ing her enemies with arms came in time to be 
cepted and rilled. But the fact that the Brit- almost paralleled by the indignation which 
ish controlled 
the sea made 
it impossible for 
the Teutonic 
allies to get like 
assistance on 
this side of the 
water. German 
orders would 
h ave been as 
gladly rilled, but 
no cargo of mu- 
nitions for the 
German army 
could ever have 
succeeded in 
reaching a Ger- 
man port. Out 
of this situation 
grew a natural 
but unjust re- 
sentment on the 
part of the Ger- 
m a n people 
against the Uni- 
ted States. 

But if the Bri- 
tish were slow in 
getting into ac- 
tion by land, 
their fleet from 
the first day of 
the war exerted 
a controlling 
force on its des- 
tinies. It was 
100 per cent, 
efficient in pre- 
venting Ger- 
many from 
drawing at all 

upon the United Panic stricken mobs escaping from Antwerp. The congestion was terrific around the end of the bridge 
States for mu- that furnished the only means of escape from the beleagr red Antwerp 

nitions of war. 

the United States felt because of the aggres- 
sions of the British. 

This, however, has nothing to do with the 
record of the efficiency of the British fleet as 
compared with the early inefficiency of the 
British army. In later chapters will be told 




Unhappily its success in maintaining a lawful 
blockade and preventing contraband of war 
from reaching German ports led the Brit ish to go 
farbeyond any regulation of international trade 
hitherto justified by international law. The 
legitimate business of American citizens was 
wantonly interfered with, the foreign mails of the story of the naval operations of the war. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





Copyright. 101-, National " ieu graphic Magazii 

SARAJEVO, WHERE THE ARCHDUKE FRANCIS FERDINAND WAS ASSASSINATED 



3o 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 

iJltiii 




Emperor Francis Joseph and the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, whose assassination in Sarajevo lighted the great European 

conflagration 



Enough here to say that at the very outset 
German commerce was swept from the seas, 
the German fleet bottled up in Kiel, whence 
it could make only sporadic raids without 
material bearing on the fortunes of the war, 



and a blockade established that deprived the 
Teutonic allies of any supplies of munitions 
of war from neutral countries and speedily 
made the question of food supplies for their 
people one of the greatest gravity. 





The Imperial Guard passing in review hefore Emperor William. At the left of the Kaiser is General Lowenfeldt and ar the 
extreme ritihr Genera! von Buelow The lartet was the first general to I ill 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



3i 




Defending the Belgian swamps. Every ditch and canal was used as a line of desperate resistance 



CHRONOLOGY OF THE DIPLOMACY THAT LED TO WAR— 1914 



June 28. Assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, 
heir to the throne of Austria. 

July 23. Austria's ultimatum to Servia. 

July 24. Russia asks Austria lor delay. Austria refuses. 

July 2;. Servia concedes all Austrian demands, save that 
Austrian officials shall be allowed to participate in the 
inquiry by Servians into the assassination. 

July 27. Russia notifies Austria that it will not permit in- 
vasion of Servian territory — Semiofficially Germany inti- 
mates that no one shall interfere in the controversy between 
Austria and Servia — Sir F.dward Grey proposes mediation 
between the two countries embroiled by a conference of 
ambassadors in London — France and Italy accept; Ger- 
many and Austria decline. 

July 28. Austria announces a state of war with Servia. 
July 29. Russia calls all reservists to the colors. Germany 

insisrs that Austria-Hungary shall negotiate further with 

Russia. Nothing comes of the suggestion. 

July 30. Germany asks Russia to stop mobilization within 
twenty-four hours. England notifies Germany that if 
genera] conflict should occur it will not remain neutral. 

July 51, Russia ignores German ultimatum and declares that 
it will not allow Servia to be crushed. 

August 1. Germany declares war upon Russia. The French 
government orders general mobilization. 

4ug ust 2. Germany begins the invasion of France through 
tlie neutral Duchy ot Luxemburg. England asks Germany 
if she will respect tl-„ neutrality of Belgium. Germany 
declines to answer. 



/ . 1 ;. Germany sends ultimatum to Belgium demanding 
lice passage for her troops. Belgium refuses. Demands 
that Germany respect her neutrality, and proclaims martial 
law. King Albert of Belgium asks England's diplomatic 
intervention to safeguard Belgian neutrality. The German 
Ambassador to London promises that if England will remain 
neutral Germany will not attack the northern and western 
coasts of France. Italy proclaims neutrality. German 
Emperor gives the Russian Ambassador his passports. 
France declares that war with Germany began automatically 
with invasion of her territory. 

August 4. English ultimatum to Germany demands satis- 
factory assurance on the neutrality ot Belgium. King 
George orders the mobilization of the British army. At 
midnight, no reply to ultimatum having been received from 
Germany, war rs declared. 

August 5. Germans attacked Liege, Belgium. 

August 6. Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia. 

August 8. Portugal announced its decision to supporl Greal 
Britain (while technically Portugal thus assumed .1 position 
■ if hostility to Germany she did not participate in actual 
hostilities during the first two years of the wai 1. 

August 9. Servia declares war against Germany. 

August 10. France declares war on Austria. 

August 13. Austria and Great Britain each declate war on 
the other. 



.hi. u 23. Japan declares 



on Germany. 



CHAPTER II 



THE INVASION OF BELGIUM DASH UPON PARIS PLAN OF GER- 
MAN CAMPAIGN HEROISM OF BELGIANS MARVELOUS EFFI- 
CIENCY OF GERMANS FALL OF NAMUR SIR JOHN FRENCH'S 

RETREAT GERMAN DEFEAT AT THE MARNE PARIS SAVED 




A French cuirassier 



D DRESSING a 

gathering of dis- 
tinguished scien- 
tists, educators, 
and army offi- 
cers of high com- 
mand in 1910, 
Emperor William 
uttered this declara- 
tion of his own om- 
nipotence: 

'''Considering my- 
self as the instrument 
of the Lord, without 
heeding the views and 
opinions of the day, I 
go my '.Ten'." 
Accepting this as the rule of conduct of a 
monarch, vested with almost irresponsible 
and unfettered command over the lives of 
millions of men, and all the resources of a 
great nation, we can understand better the 
early events of the great war. For the first 
act of the German Emperor was to brush aside 
every treaty right or obligation which hamp- 
ered his freedom of action, or for a moment 
put in jeopardy his plan of conquest. 

This plan was in brief to dash into France, 
seize Paris, and subdue the French people in 
the first sixty days of the war. The Ger- 
mans estimated that the great inert mass of 
the Russian fighting forces could not be 
mobilized and brought into effective action 
on the eastern frontier of Germany in less 
time than this, so they would be able to crush 
France and return to their own eastern frontier 
in time to save it from the horrors of a Rus- 
sian invasion. Long before the declaration 
of war the German troops planning this 
invasion of France were massed along the 
frontier. The French should have recog- 
nized, and perhaps did recognize, that it was 



not along the French frontier, extending 
from the neutral Duchy of Luxemburg to the 
neutral territory of Switzerland that the 
heaviest German divisions were arrayed. 
Instead it was along the line that separates 
Germany from Luxemburg and from Belgium. 
The reason for this was promptly shown upon 
the declaration of war. Going his way, 
heedless of the views and opinions of the 
day, and equally of the treaties to which 
his government was a party, the Kaiser 
instantly filled the Duchy of Luxemburg with 
his troops. The reigning Duchess protested 
mildly and went into retirement. Her coun- 
try had no force adequate to check the tor- 
rent of two hundred thousand or more of armed 
Germans which overwhelmed it. The in- 
vasion was lawless, how lawless the Chance- 
lor of the German Empire at once confessed 
when in a speech to the Reichstag he said: 

"We are now in a state of necessity, and 
necessity knows no law! . . . We were 
compelled to override the just protest of the 
Luxemburg and Belgian governments. The 
wrong — / speak openly — that we are commit- 
ting we will endeavor to make good as soon as 
our military goal has been reached. Anybody 
who is threatened, as we are threatened and is 
lighting for his highest possessions, can have 
only one thought — how he is to hack his way 
through." 

The plan of campaign which the German 
military staff — as busy almost in time of 
peace as in time of war — had prepared con- 
templated the invasion of France from three 
points bv three armies: 

The Army of the Meuse, with its base at 
Aix-la-Chapelle was to enter Belgium, re- 
duce the forts at Liege and march on Paris 
by a westerly route, taking in passing the 
forts at Namur and at Lille. 

The Armv of the Moselle alreadv concen- 



34 

trated in Luxemburg was 
to enter France at 
Longwy and pro- 
ceed to Paris, 
subduing 
by the 
way 
the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



No army of all history 

ever took the field 

so splendidly 

equipped with 

new and 

terrible 

engines 

of war 




fort- 
resses 

at Ver- •£ 

dun and 
Rheims. •j*J' n *W 

The Army of l >i4 

the Rhine, the only 
one not making neutral 
territory a part of its 
pathway, was to have its 
base at Strassburg and 

cross the French frontier near Nancy. By 

this last route the Prussians thrice before Motor cars carried soldiers swiftly from 
had reached the French capital. point to point and hurried light guns into 

The Army of the Meuse was made up of action; heavily armored, they had their place 
the very flower of the German army, for on the line of battle, and marked with 



Belgian field pieces masked by hem;; placed a 
bushes and partly screened by straw 



and indicated to 



t li e 
armies of 
Germanv, 
and particu- 
larly the Army 
of the Meuse in this 
campaign. Aeroplanes 
and dirigibles spied out 
the way, reported the 
positions of the enemy, 
the artillery the range. 



to it was assigned the task which was ex- 
pected to be the most glorious and the most 
spectacular, and, proving to be both of those, 
was the most arduous as well. Upon it the 
eyes of the civilized world were riveted for 
weeks. Against it fought Belgians, British, 
and French from the very outset of its opera- 
tions, and before it merged its identity in the 
general German line it had withstood the 
assaults of infantry, cavalry, and artillery 
— and all with hardly a stop for food or sleep; 
it had met and fought Turcos from French 
Africa, and Sikhs and Hindoos from British 
East India. Commanded by General von 
Emmerich, it numbered at its entrance upon 
Belgian soil about 200,000 men, which 



the Red Cross they carried the wounded to 
places of safety. Rapid-fire guns poured 
out streams of bullets like water from a 
hose, and were so compactly built that one 
could be packed on a horse, or carried on two 
motor cycles. Siege guns with a range often 
miles, of a calibre and weight never before 
thought capable of passage along country 
roads, were dragged by traction engines or by 
their own motors at a rate of eight miles an 
hour — guns that twenty years ago would 
have been useless in any field because of their 
immobility. By the use of flat platforms on 
the circumference of their wheels — "cater- 
pillar wheels" they called them — these can- 
non could be dragged by motors even over 



number, oft depleted by heavy fighting, was plowed fields. They throw an armor-piercing 

continually reenforced until it approached shot weighing 800 pounds, and at seven 

the impressive total of a half million armed miles will demolish a target of a few feet 

men. square. It was their deadly accuracy that 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



beat down Belgian resistance at Liege and 
Namur. 

Early in the afternoon of Tuesday, August 
4, 1914, the first gun of the war of the nations 
was fired, when the outposts of General 
von Emmerich's army 
exchanged shots with 
the Belgian outposts 
at Liege. The mo- 
ment will always be 
historic. Not only 
did it mark the begin- 
ning of the greatest 
war that has ever 
devastated Europe, 
but it was forty-four 
years to the day, and 
almost to the hour, 
since the forerunners 
of these invaders had 
crossed the French 
frontier at the begin- 
ning of the Franco- 
Prussian War. 

At the time the 
whole world attached 
too great importance 
to the character of the 
early battles of Bel- 
gium. But too much 

importance could not 
be attached to their 

significance for the 

delay caused by the 

heroic resistance of 

the little Belgian 

army at the outset 

unquestionably saved 

Paris by enabling the 

French to shift their 

dispositions of troops 

to meet an attack 

from an unexpected 

quarter, and in thus 

saving Paris and 

France probably de- 
termined the ultimate 

outcome of the war. 
Over the action of 

the Belgians directed 

by their heroic kin 



throughout the war bitterly denounced Kim- 
Albert for his course, which they declared 
to be dictated partly by sentimental reasons, 
and partlv through personal arrogance. They 
pointed out that the Duchy of Luxemburg, 




The map shows approximately the extent of the German advance to September 6, 1914 
The heavy lines with arrow-tips show in a general way the main German advance; the heavy 
dotted lines, routes of parallel, but lesser columns. All the territory between the line touching 
Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, and Amiens and the main line was filled with German troops. Raiding 
parties also reached Ostend and Boulogne 



„, Albert, in thus sacri- 
ficing themselves and exposing their country 
to the most cruel and indefensible ravages 
recorded since the Dark Ages, there has raged 
some conflict of opinion. 

The Germans and their sympathizers 



having accepted the inevitable and allowed 
its territory to be used at once as a place of 
concentration and a highway for German 
troops preparing for the invasion of France, 
had suffered no spoliation nor destruction ot 
property and had been reimbursed for what- 



36 

ever damage the 
passing troops 
inflicted upon 
the property of 
its inhabitants. 
They declared 
that had Bel 
g i u m been 
equally acquies- 
cent in the Ger- 
m a n plan of 
campaign, the 
troops marching 
through would 
have been in 
structed to re- 
spect property, 
whatever inci 
dental damage 
had been done 
would have been 
paid for, and the 
word of the Ger- 
man govern- 
ment wou Id 
have been 
pledged to 
maintain there- 
after the com- 
plete independ- 
ence and the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




House in Antwerp smashed by 



neutrality of 
Belgium. 

The answer, 
of course, was 
complete. The 
word of Prussia 
was already 
pledged to re- 
spect and to pro- 
tect the neutral- 
ity of Belgium. 
If that pledge 
was violated at 
a timewhenGer- 
m a n y really 
needed Belgian 
assistance 
against a hostile 
Europe, what 
chance was there 
that it would be 
respected by the 
triumphant 
government of 
the Kaiser after 
the rest of 
Europe had been 
brought to his 
feet ? Hopeless 
as resistance ap- 
peared, the Bel- 





- 



The vanguard of the Russian army marching upon Austria-Hungary 



< ><[>\ ri^ht by Under' 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



gi a ns f "It as- 
sured that if they 
we re to save 
their integrity as 
a nation they 
must fight, and 
trusttotheAllies 
to win for them 
that independ- 
ence which they 
could not secure 
by their own in- 
dependent effort 
and for the pro- 
tection of which 
they could not 
trust to German 
assurances. 

As a result 
their country 
suffered as no 
nation has in 
modern times. 
Their people, 
such as survived 
the immediate 
shockof combat, 
were reduced to 
the point of 
starvation and 
for years lived 
only through the 




Bridge over which thousands escaped. This picture of the bank of 
tlie Scheldt shows the slender pontoon bridge across which the army and 
many refugees escaped from Antwerp 



37 

charity of the 
other nations of 
the world. 
Their beautiful 
and historic 
towns were re- 
duced to ruins, 
their commerce 
laid prostrate, 
their industry- 
destroyed ex- 
apt as it was op- 
erated by their 
people working 
as slaves under 
the eyes of Ger- 
man officers for 
the advantage 
of the German 
cause. 

No other such 
record of nation- 
al self-sacrifice 
is recorded in 
history. 

But great as 
was the signifi- 
cance of the Bel- 
gian resistance 
there has been 
a tendency to 
exaggerate the 







Copyrieh! by Inti 

French infantry in action bore frequent testimony to the spirited personal initiative of the soldiers 



3* 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Czar Nicholas tasting a sample of the soup that was served to the Russian army 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



39 



character of the battles fought there in the 
first ten days of the war of the nations. 
What really happened was that with the 
very first action the German artillery proved 
so vastly superior to the Belgian forts, and 
the German cohorts so enormously outnum- 
bered the Belgian defenders that there could 
not for a moment be any question as to the 
issue. 

Liege, the point of first attack, had been 



Belgian troops manned these forts, or de- 
fended the gaps between them. Two hun- 
dred thousand Germans demanded that the 
way be opened. Worse than all, the equip- 
ment of the forts had not been kept up to 
date and their armament was entirely inade- 
quate for their defence. In fact, the first and 
largest fort, Fleron, was practically silenced 
by the field guns of the Germans, who had not 
yet had time to bring up their heavy siege 




Copyright by Underwood & Undenvod 

Refugees from the outlying villages fleeing to Brussels for pro- 
tection against the advancing German army 



looked upon as a fortified point of prodigious 
strength. Its fortresses were of the type 
which military science up to that time had 
fixed upon as approaching the impregnable. 
They were wrought steel turrets, curved so as 
to offer the poorest possible target for shells, 
looking like great black mushrooms, squat- 
ting close to the ground with a ditch sur- 
rounding each and a broad cleared space 
on every side. Underground passages con- 
nected the nine turrets, and there was the 
usual provision of mines, ditches, electrified 
barbed-wire entanglements, and other de- 
vices for defence. But onlv twentv thousand 



guns, which afterward proved the sensation 
of the first weeks of the war. The fall of 
this, the most powerful of the Belgian works, 
opened a gap in the defences of Liege, which 
was held with unprecedented gallantry for 
forty-eight hours by a comparatively few men, 
the greater part of whom were little better 
than civilians in training. During this period 
the Germans brought up their big howitzers, 
smashed two supporting fortresses, and opened 
the way to the city to the German advance. 

Ignoring for the time the other works still 
held by the Belgians, the Germans entered 
Liege, made it a base of supplies, and pressed 



rHE NATIONS AT WAR 




German volunteers 

on to the interior of Belgium. While their 
armies were thus advancing, the other forts 
were reduced by a savage artillery fire. 
General Leman, the Belgian commander 
in the city, established himself in the fort of 
Loncin, which was to the west of Liege and 
intended to defend that city, not to sustain 
an attack from it. The German possession 
of Liege enabled them to attack the fort 
from its so-called blind side. Almost wholly 
unable to return the fire, the gallant defenders 
held their ground until after a resistance of 
days the fort was literally battered to pieces, 
its garrison all killed 
or wounded and the 
General himself found by 
;he attacking force ap- 
parently dead in the ruins. 
Liege furnished the first 
proof of the utter worth- 
lessness in the face of 
modern artillery of the 
type of fort which the 
nations of Europe up to 
that time had been rely- 
ing upon. Thereafter the 
few forts that were able 
to resist artillery were 
simply left for the time, 
while the invading army 
swept by into the desired 
territory, leaving a com- 
paratively small detach- 
ment to prevent any 



offensive operation on the part 
of the garrison. This was done 
at Lille, Namur, and Maubeuge. 
Namur, which all France thought 
>^K J ; would hold back the German tide 
tor a month at least, detained them 
but a day. As the war progressed 
and new solutions were found for 
the problems it offered, the trench 
and the barbed-wire entangle- 
ment, hastily thrown up by the 
troops in the very moment of ac- 
tion and readily replaced by other 
like works when abandonment 
became necessary, took the place 
of the huge fortresses. Even Ver- 
dun, whose resistance for months, 
indeed, for more than two years, 
to the persistent attacks of the 
Germans under the Crown Prince 
was saved not by its own guns, 
but by the network of trenches 
and concealed field artillerv by winch it was 
surrounded on every side. 

The very first test of the great German and 
Austrian siege cannon forced the abandon- 
ment as worthless of that long line of ponder- 
ous fortresses that France had built along 
the German frontier and upon which the Re- 
public had spent more than £1,500,000,000, or 
more than the whole South African War cost 
Great Britain or the Manchurian War had 
cost Russia. 

It was on Saturday, the 15th of August, 
the two chief German armies began their 




All that was left from th 



disaster. 1 his dog cart and its contents 
prosperous family saved from ruin 



that a once 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



4i 



advance along the Belgian railways 
which have their point of concen- 
tration in Liege across the Belgian 
plain. The delay which had oc- 
curred on the frontier had enabled 
the French to hurry back part of 
their forces from Alsace-Lorraine 
which they had invaded immedi- 
ately upon the declaration of war. 
In passing it may be noted that at 
first the French forces in these 
former provinces of the Republic 
had carried all before them, the 
main attention of the German 
military command being directed 
toward the Belgian frontier. But 
the French advance there was 
speedily checked and the necessity 
for calling back a large portion of 
the troops to meet the German 
advance through Belgiumdestroyed 
the importance of the Alsace- 
Lorraine campaign during the first 
half of the war. 

To meet the greater German 
menace the French troops were hurried into a 
position near Namur, where in cooperation 
with the British expeditionary force they 
formed a line crossing the River Sambre at 
Charleroi and forming a sharp angle behind the 
River Meuse. Along this line were arrayed 
about 250,000 men of whom the British num- 
bered about 100,000. Pressing down upon 
them in parallel lines through Belgium were 
not less than 500,000 Germans, delayed some- 
what but not long re- 
strained by the gallant 
resistance of the Belgians. 

The advance was one 
continuous fight, not as 
in the Franco-Prussian 
War, or the American 
Civil War, a succession 
of pitched battles with 
days, even weeks, be- 
tween for recuperation. 
So steady and determined 
was the fighting that even 
the customary armistices 
for the burial of the dead 
after sanguinary combats 
were refused bv one or 
the other combatant, 
and the gruesome prac- 
tice became customary of 
piling the bodies in huge 




\n Impromptu Registration. Refugees from Antwerp writing rheir names and 
addresses on a fence to let their friends know their whereabouts 



pyramids with combustibles and thereto ap- 
plying the torch. Vise, Montaud, Mons, 
Haelen, Tirlemont were clashes which in any 
other war would have been reported as pitched 
battles. The official reports of this gigantic 
struggle dismiss them with the curt state- 
ment, "Our forces were in contact with the 
enemy at Haelen," or a reference to the "af- 
fair of outposts at Vise." But they were very 
real, very savage, and each contributed its 




The English recruit's introduction to army life. Volunteers arriving at Aldershot train- 
ing camp are first taught to form in line and are given instructions in matching in step 



4 2 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



kingdom in the neighborhood of Ostend, 
where the fragment of the Belgian army 
which had been beaten indeed, but not 
annihilated, maintained itself gallantly. 
It was holding this corner of 
the kingdom of Belgium free 
from German occupation at the 
end of the war's second year. 
The action of the authorities 
of Brussels in offering no resist- 
ance to the incoming Germans 
was dictated by consideration 
of the methods of revenge and 
terrorism adopted by the Ger- 
mans in their march through 
Belgium. War has never been 
more remorseless. In every 
town and village prominent men 
were seized as hostages and were 
relentlessly put to death if any 
citizen, maddened by the de- 
struction of his property or in- 
sults offered to his womenkind, dared 
to attack the aggressors. The story 
of German atrocities in Belgium is 
not to be told here. It formed the 
Boot inspection at Aldershot. Owing to a short supply new shoes cannot subject of heated diplomatic discussion 
he issued to all volunteers at once, and so the most needy are supplied first 




quota to the tens of thousands of lives 
offered up on the altar of imperial 
ambition and national vainglory. 

In the course of this advance 
the Belgian capital, Brussels, 
was entered without fighting. 
The burgomaster of the city, 
wisely advised by the United 
States Minister, Brand Whit- 
lock, met the approaching in- 
vaders with the assurance that 
there would be no resistance 
offered and that every effort 
would be made to prevent un- 
authorized attacks on the Ger- 
man troops. The city was 
thereupon made the head- 
quarters of the Army of the 
Meuse, and by imperial pro- 
clamation the Kaiser declared 
Belgium to be part of the Ger- 
man Empire. King Albert and the 
remnant of the Belgian government 
retired to Antwerp, and when that city 
subsequently fell into the German 
hands they retired further to the 
extreme southwestern corner of the 




Doing signal corps work. Some of the more intelligent i 
detailed for signal corps duties and are given a rigorous tra 
primary lesson is in "wig-wagging" with flags 



nuts are 
ning. I he 



T HE N A T IONS A T W A R 



43 



£J^ 




A RUINED LIEGE FORT 
A steel turret overthrown ami masonry demolished by Gern 



an siege guns 



44 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Germans Hnd work lor their 



1 his photograph shows Brit 
building fences near Berlin 



ans engaged in 



in all the countries involved. It was inves- 
tigated by a distinguished commission, headed 
by Viscount James Bryce, whose name alone 
carries conviction of 
intellectual honesty 
to all informed 
readers. In every 
war men lose in some 
degree the sem- 
blance of humanity 
and cast off the 
veneer of civiliza- 
tion. It is impos- 
sible, however, to 
read both sides of 
the discussion of 
German methods 
during the first 
weeks of the invasion 
of Belgium without 
being convinced that 
the extreme sever- 
ity, approaching 
barbarism, was both 
definitelv ordered 
and systematically 
encouraged by the 
German command- 
ers in pursuance of 
the "policy of fright- 
fulness," and with 
the purpose of over- 




The effect of one sh 



awing at the very outset a population which 
they knew they would hold in military sub- 
jection during the period of the war, and 
hoped to retain as 
vassals thereafter. 
It is significant that 
as the conquest of 
Belgium became 
more complete the 
savagery of the in- 
vaders was miti- 
gated. 

Most shocking to 
the sentiment of the 
world was the almost 
complete destruc- 
tion of the quaintest 
and most pictur- 
esque part of Lou- 
vain, a Belgian town 
richly stored with 
treasures of Gothic 
art and architecture 
dating from the per- 
iod of the Middle 
Ages. This town 
was destroyed by the 
Germans systemat- 
ically, with military 
precision, by soldiers 
who went from street 
,ver P to street filling the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




first stones of the buildings 
with combustibles and then 
applying the torch. The 
excuse given by General von 
Lutwitz, in command, was 
that a shot fired bv the 
burgomaster's son killed a 
hi;;!i German officer and 
seemed to serve as a signal 
for snipers in the windows 
and on roofs. He asserted 
that investigation showed 
that the inhabitants were 
plotting a general attack 
upon the troops. All these 
charges were earnestly de- 
nied by the authorities and 
citizens of Louvain Both 
parties to the controversy 
sent commissions to the 
United States to lay before 
the President the facts in 
the case. 

Nothing in the course of the war indicated 
more strikingly the changing tenor of mili- 
tary sentiment than the earnestness with 
which all parties to this great conflict be- 
sought the good opinion of the United States. 
All war is cruel, bloodthirsty, barbaric, but 
every charge that either belligerent had ex- 
ceeded the necessary ruthlessness of battle 
was at once indignantly repudiated and 
every effort made to marshal facts in its 
disproof. Charges of the sort there were in 
plenty and the destruction of Louvain, com- 
ing in the very first week of the war, was 
fought over as bitterly in the organs of public 
opinion as it had been in the streets of the 
town. Whatever the excuse — and, concern- 
ing that, doubt will never be settled — the 
destruction was complete. A most graphic 
description of it was written by Richard 
Harding Davis, the well-known American 
author, who was held prisoner in a railroad 
car in Louvain by German soldiers while 
the town was burning: 

"When by troop train we reached Louvain, 
the entire heart of the city was destroyed 
and fire had reached the Boulevard Tirle- 
mont, which faces the railroad station. The 
night was windless and the sparks rose in 
steady, leisurely pillars, falling back into the 
furnace from which they sprang. 

"In their work of destruction the soldiers 
were moving from the heart of the city to its 
outskirts, street bystreet, from house to house. 



B®i 





" In each building, so German 
soldiers told me, they began at 
the first floor,, and when that was burning 
steadily passed to the one next. There were 
no exceptions — whether it was a store, chapel, 
or private residence, it was destroyed. The 
occupants had been warned to go, and in 
each deserted shop or house the furniture was 
piled, the torch was stuck under it, and into 
the air went the savings of years, souvenirs 
of children, of parents, heirlooms that had 
passed from generation to generation. 

"The people had time only to fill a pillow- 
case and fly. Some were not so fortunate, 
and by thousands, like flocks of sheep, they 
were rounded up and marched through the 
night to concentration camps. We were 
not allowed to speak to any citizen of Lou- 
vain, but the Germans crowded the windows, 
boastful, gloating, eager to interpret. 

"On the high ground rose the broken spires 
of the Church of St. Pierre and the Hotel de 
\ille, and descending like steps were row 



4 6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



beneath row of houses, roofless, with windows 
like blind eves. The hie had reached the 
last row of houses, those on the Boulevard de 
Jodigne. Some of these were already cold, 
but others sent up steady, straight columns 
of flame. In others at the third and fourth 
stories the window curtains still hung, flowers 
still filled the window boxes, while on the 
first floor the torch had just passed and the 
flames were leaping. Fire had destroyed the 
electric plant, but at times the flames made 
the station so light that you could see the 
second hand of your watch, and again all was 
darkness, lit only by candles. 

"You could tell when an officer passed by 
the electric torch he carried strapped to his 
chest. In the darkness the gray 
uniforms filled the station with 
an army of ghosts. You dis- 
tinguished men only when pipes 
hanging from their teeth glowed 
red or their bayonets flashed. 

"Outside the station in the 
public square the people of 
Louvain passed in an unending 
procession, women bareheaded, 
weeping, men carrying the chi 
dren asleep on their shoulders, 
all hemmed in by the shadowy 
armv of gray wolves. Once 
they were halted, and among 
them were marched a line of men. 
They well knew their fellow- 
townsmen. These were on the 
way to be shot. And better to 
point the moral an officer halted 
both processions 
and, climbing to a 

cart, explained why 

the men were to die. 

He warned others not 

to bring down upon 

themselves a like 

vengeance. 

"As those being led 

to spend the night in 

thefieldslookedacross 

to those marked 

for death they saw 

old friends, neigh- 
bors of long standing, 

men of their own 

household. The 

officer bellowing at 

them from the cart 

was illuminated by 



the headlights of an automobile. He looked 
like an actor held in a spotlight on a darkened 
stage. 

"It was all like a scene upon the stage, so 
unreal, so inhuman, you felt it could not be 
true; that the curtain of fire, purring and 
crackling and sending up sparks to meet the 
kind, calm stars, was only a painted backdrop ; 
that the reports of rifles from the dark rooms 
came from blank cartridges; and that these 
trembling shopkeepers and peasants ringed 
in bayonets would not in a few minutes really 
die, but that they themselves and their homes 
would be restored to their wives and chil- 
dren." 

Thursday, August ioth, the German forces 
proceeding through Belgium had massed in 
hea vy numbers before Namur, where as we have 
seen the Anglo-French forces awaited their at- 
tack. Namur lies at the junction of the Sambre 
and Meuse rivers. Its forts, which up to that 
time had been supposed to be impregnable, 
formed the whole support of the French right 
against the unexpectedly overpowering force 
of the Germans. With those forts destroyed 
there was no possible chance for the 
French to block in the open field the 
progress southward into theircountry 
of the German invaders. But to 
the amazement and the consternation 
of the Anglo-French forces Namur 
fell almost with the first shock of the 
attack. The Germans entered the 
city the very day they arrived before 
it. Two or three of the forts held 
out for a time but soon succumbed, 
the attack of the Ger- 
mans upon the French 
line proceeding while 
these forts were still 
unsubdued. 

The forces opposed 
to the German inva- 
sion, enumerated 
from the left of the 
line, or its western 
end which rested at 
Mons, were as follows: 
The British con- 
tingent, numbering 
at the outset barely 
70,000 men under the 
command of Sir John 
French, extended to 
Charleroi, where it 
came into contact 




A Krupp aeroplane gun. The two small tubes at the top are 
filled with glycerine to take up the recoil 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



47 



with the fifth French army of three corps 
amounting to perhaps 1 20,000 men, under Gen- 
eral Joff "re. This French line extended asfaras 
the angle of the rivers at Namur, then bent 
sharply in an angle to the south where 
along the Meuse lay three more army corps 
amounting to another 120,000 men. In all 
at this moment there were about 400,000 men 
in this allied army. 

Unsuspecting the marvelous efficiency of 
the German transportation neither of the 
allies imagined that they would be attacked 
by more than 500,000 men at the utmost. 
While this was conceding a heavy superiority 
to the enemy, yet with the advantage of the 
Namur forts, the weakness of which none 
suspected, and with the protection of the two 
rivers the case did not seem hopeless. At the 
very worst the allied commanders looked 
forward only to a slow retirement to permit 
the further reinforcements, which were com- 
ing from England and from other sections of 
France, a chance to reach the firing line. 

What happened was that the Namur forts 
gave way before the enemy's fire like so 
many paper boxes, and the German force, 
which had not been expected to reach four 
hundred thousand, was in fact seven hundred 
thousand. They had brought through Bel- 
gium five army corps, each with a separate 
division, under the command of General von 
Kluck, which confronted 
the two British corps under 
French, tour more, under 
Von Buelow, including the 
Emperor's own imperial 
guard, extended from Yon 
Kluck's right to Namur, 
where the line was taken up 
by the third army under the 
Duke of Wurtemburg num- 
bering five corps. 



had 
field 



The lattt 
reached the 
of action by press- 
i n g through the 
difficult territory 
ot the I'orest of 
Ardennes through 
which the French 
authorities had no 
belief an army 
could move with 
anything like the 
celerity it attained. 
The effect of this 




overwhelming force was that not only were 
the British and French brigades confronted 
by superior forces in their immediate front, 
but the right of Von Kluck's army extended 
far beyond the left Hank of Sir John French, 
while the left of the Duke of Wurtemburg's 
army likewise extended beyond the right flank 
of the fourth French army. Thus the force 
striving to hold the invaders back from French 
soil was in imminent danger of being flanked 
at either end, surrounded, and annihilated. 
Had that happened nothing could have saved 
France. Cities, even capitals, may be lost by 
a nation without the loss of the war if its armies 
are still left in the field to continue the 
struggle. But with the army destroyed the 
nation itself falls. So we shall see later thatat 
the moment when Paris itself seemed most in 
danger, the French government, not withstand- 
ing the sentimental affection which would 
seem to dictate the defense of its capital to 
the bitter end, nevertheless prepared for its 
abandonment and the concentration of every 
effort upon saving the army. At Namur 
both allied armies were in the gravest peril 
from which they extricated themselves slowly 
and only by a retreat almost to the gates of 
Paris conducted with the most admirable 
skill by General French and General Joffre, and 
maintained with heroic endurance and daring 
by both British and French soldiers. The 
unmihtary reader is apt to think of a re- 
treat as only an ignominious incident 
of war. So it is, if it is allowed to de- 
generate into a panic, but although the 
circumstances dependent upon the 
beginning of this retirement gave every 
excuse for rout, the generals and soldiers 
kept their heads and out of the dis- 
couragement of retreat plucked the 
laurels of victory on the banks of the 




cac uuns wit 



h rhe so-calltd caterpillar wheels 

soft rnads 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Marne almost two 
weeks later. 

What happened at 
Namur was that on 
Saturday, the 21st of 
August, the Germans 
delivered so fierce an 
assault on the fourth 
and fifth armies that 
both fell back toward 
Mauberge. Through 
some error never ex- 
plained, and about 
which the British 
have ever jsince com- 
plained bitterly, news 
of this retirement was 
not sent to Sir John 
French until nearly 
twenty-four hours later. His troops were in 
fierce battle with those of Von Kluck and at 
the moment did not under- 
stand the overpowering di- 
mensions of the force bv 
which they were attacked. 
In the midst of this action 
word came to 
French that his 
allies were in full 
retreat, and that 
a gap was open 
between the end 
of his line and 
theirs into which 
the German 
arm}' might well 
have poured, cut 
the continuity of 
the allied lines, 
and destroyed 
their armies. 
Out of this situ- 
ation, more 
menacing to his 
force than to the 
French because 
his troops were 
vastly more out- 
numbered and 
were enveloped 
on either flank. 
Sir John French 
plucked ulti- 
mate victory. 
Nothing is more 
difficult than to 




On thi- road to safety. The dog is much used as a draught 
animal in Belgium, and many refugees were fortunate enough 
to get dog carts in which to escape 




Every part of the German battle lines, an aggregate of almost 600 miles, has 
been visited hy the Crown Prince- 



lead an outnumbered 
army to safety in a re- 
treat extending over 
a number of days. 
^ ou cannot merely 
turn your back upon 
the enemy and walk 
awav, tor while you 
are so doing his troops 
will be pounding 
away at your rear, 
his artillery would be 
in constant pursuit, 
unlimbering long 
enough to fire a few 
score shot into the 
retreating columns, 
then limbering up 
again and dashingfor- 
ward to a point of closer contact. The only 
wav an orderly retreat can be conducted is by 
setting aside one detach- 
ment after another to hold 
the pursuing enemy in check 
while the main body of the 
retreating army presses on 
to safety. This 
means, of course, 
heavy sacrifice 
of men and guns, 
but safeguards 
the integrity of 
the whole army. 
This sort o t 
fighting was 
maintained by 
both British and 
French from the 
22d of August 
until about the 
2d of September, 
at which time 
the Germans 
had reached 
the neighbor- 
hood of Senlis, 
their nearest ap- 
proach to Paris. 
One Sunday, 
August 23d, the 
British were 
holding their 
enemy in check 
outside the 
French frontier 
at Mons in Bel- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



49 




War's real victims. Hungry women ami children waiting in the "bread line" at Malines, the da\ before the bombardment 
of Antwerp began. Malines was included in the storm of shell, and the building in the background was set on fire the night aftel 
this picture was taken 

wild with joy. Her troops had reduced for- 
tresses that had been expected to hold out for 
weeks, and had done nothing but pursue flying 
force of French and British which offered only 
the brief resistanceof rearguard battles. "Se- 
dan Day " approached — that glorious Sep- 
tember ist on which, in 1S70, Napoleon Third 
and the last great French army were trapped 
by Von Moltke on the battleground at Sedan, 
cut to pieces, and forced to surrender. Up 
and down the streets of Berlin now marched 
cheering mobs, crying for some great new 
triumph on this 
historic anniver- 
sary, while German 
officers, and it is 
said even the Em- 
peror himself, 
gayly made ap- 
pointments to cele- 
brate it in Paris at 
the Cafe de la Paix. 
In part the enthu- 
siasm of Berlin was 
j ustified, for on 
that day came 
news of the over- 
whelming victory 
of Von Hindenberg 
over the Russians 
at Tannenberg in 
East Prussia — a 
victory which for 
more than a year 
held that section of 
Germanv free from 



gium. A week later they were at La Fere, 
onlv eighty-five miles from Paris. At Rheims, 
whose famous Gothic cathedral became for 
weeks the favorite target for German guns, the 
French lost the town, 410 guns, and 12,000 
men, and all Germany went wild because 
that same city had fallen on precisely the 
same date forty-four years earlier. Later 
the French retook it. While the Army of the 
Meuse was thus pushing bud: both the 
British and the French, the Army of the 
Moselle, under Prince Rupprecht, broke 
through a French 
line of from five to 
eight army corps 
between Nancy 
and the Vosges, 
defeating them de 
cisively. The 
Army of the Crown 
Prince, advancing 
through Luxem 
burg, menaced 
Paris from that 
direction. Nothing 
seemed likely to in- 
tervene for the sal 
v a t i o n of the 
French capital, 
from which the 
government had 
fled to Bordeaux 
while the city itself 
was daily menaced 
by the flight over 
it of German aero- 
planes. 

All Germany was 




British troops passing through London streets on their way to the 
front 



invasion. 
But in 



France 



5Q 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Photograph taken amid hurstint; shells. This picture was taken under fire. The soldiers in the trenches were Belgians 



Sedan Day marked the beginning of the 
end of German triumph. It was almost the 
critical moment which determined the result 
of the war. For on that day the German 
advance was halted so near to Paris that the 
city's church bells could be heard during 
the lulls in the clatter of 
musketry along the op- 
posing lines. 

The German halt was 
so sudden as to amaze 
all the world, and even 
Paris was dazed by the 
abruptness of its respite. 
For five weeks the 
enemy's advance had 
been practically without 
interruption. There had, 
it is true, been no great 
battles, as battles have 
come to be estimated 
in this colossalwar. The 
flood of Teutons clad in 
gray-green had over- 
flowed first Belgium then 
northern France, yielding 
to no obstacle whatso- 
ever, pushing back from 
before them the French 
and English alike, until at E 



the beginning of the fifth week of the invasion 
it seemed certain that the boasts of the early 
days of the war, that Paris would be taken in 
six weeks as had been the case in 1871, seemed 
certain of fulfillment. 

But the German generals knew better than 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



S' 




Making English recruits phvsi 



either their soldiers or the mass of the people 
could know, that every day of the advance 
toward Paris made their problem harder. 
To begin with the force opposed to them was 
being ceaselessly reenforced. Guarded by the 
great gray battleships of the British navy, the 




A laml i if universal mourning. Women in France wearing mourning for lost relative 



transports of the British army were slipping 
back and forth across the Channel bringing 
troops by the tens of thousands to the reen- 
forcement of Sir John French. At Namur 
the British line had been estimated at about 
seventy thousand. When the Germans were 
halted near Senlis it num- 
bered not less than 
i 50,000. At Namur, 
again, the French forces 
were estimated at about 
240,ooomen. When the 
check was imposed on 
Von Kluck and Von Bue- 
lowthey had increased to 
the neighborhood of a mil- 
lion men. Moreover, 
the French brought into 
action at this point an en- 
tirely fresh army of nearly 
500,000 men, which had 
been gathering under the 
eye of General Gallieni, 
commandant of Paris, for 
the express defence of the 
capital. While it is rea- 
sonable to believe that 
Yon Kluck was aware of 
theexistenceof this army, 
lie himself has recorded 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




English " Rookies" L't-rtint; first insmicti 



that he greatly underestimated its numbers. 
It was a picturesque and emphatically a 
fighting; force. In it were the famous Foreign 
Legion, immortalized by Ouida in her novel, 
" Under Two Flags." . Not a few adventurous 
spirits from the United States served in its 
ranks. There, too, wcreTurkos from northern 



Africa, Apaches 
from the height 
of Montmartre, 
and Orientals 
from the pictur- 
esque countries 
of the East. 
Thrust entirely 
fresh into the 
conflict against 
the fatigued 
German troops, 
this army pro- 
duced an im- 
mediate and de- 
cisive result. 

Not only were 
the Allies 
stronger at the 
close of their re- 
treat, but the 
Germans were 
weaker. Always 
during the pur- 
suit the Germans 
had outnumbered their adversaries; now had 
come the time when they were to be out- 
numbered. The hostile territory of Belgium 
had to be garrisoned with troops withdrawn 
from the German fighting force. Probably 
more than 100,000 were thus taken from Von 
Kli:ck's army. More serious than this, how- 



nhting 




Copyright. Underwood & I nderwood 

British Marines disembarking at Ostend and receiving a rousing welcome from the Belgians 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



S3 



ever, had been the necessity for sending back end of this line on which the heaviest fighting 
to the east heavy detachments to meet the had thus far been done. Next to him came 
unexpectedly prompt and vigorous attack of General von Buelow, whose left flank in 



the Russians in Galicia and East Prussia. Not 

less than five armycorpswere thus disposed of. 

And so it came about that when almost in 

sight of the coveted French capital on Sep- 



tum rested on the army of the Prince of 
Wurtemburg. Last of all, to the east, was the 
Army of the Crown Prince, starting at the 
German frontier, and enveloping Verdun, the 




Uhlan patrol surprised by Belgian armored car 



tember ist, Von Kluck was forced to aban- 
don the method of strategy that had so far 
been wholly successful. He no longer had 
enough men to reach around the left flank 
of the allied army. Instead he was obliged 
to withdraw his own right flank, swing it to 
the eastward, and halt his advance. 

When this check was sustained the Ger- 
mans held a line over one hundred miles long, 
leaching from Amiens in the west through 
Sen lis, Meaux, and so eastward to Verdun 
and Toul. Von Kluck held the western 



long struggle for the reduction of which had 
iust begun. 

Opposed to Von Kluck was the Army of 
Paris, fresh troops in the main. The English 
who had so long and stubbornly contested 
the German advance had now been shifted 
from the extreme right of the German line, 
many of their troops passing through Paris 
to their new position. Beyond this command 
of Sir John French extended the main line of 
the French army — Generals Pau, Desperey, 
de Langle, Foch, and Sarrail, all under the 



54 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




*«w-A=*" ;sii ' 



3He**jO 




supreme command of General Joffre. More 
than two million men, armed to the teeth, 
drilled to the highest point of efficiency, 
equipped with every imaginable device for 
the prosecution of bloody and successful 
war, and animated on either side by motives 
of the highest patriotism, believing themselves 
fighting for their homes, their countries, and 
the very continuance of civilization, confronted 
each other along this far-flung battleline. 

The country in which these colossal armies 
were thus aligned included some of the fairest 
spots in France. 
The harvest still 
stood in the 
fields, for the 
peasants were all 
in the army and 
none save wo- 
men were left for 
the harvesting. 
The villages, 
trim and neat 
as are all the 
little hamlets 
of France, 
were swept of 
all men, and 
the wo m e n 
and children left 
behind looked 
wide-eyed out 
upon the scene of 
sudden martial 
invasion, and 
were soon swal- 
lowed up in the 
red torrent of 
war. 

W h e n V o n 




Kluck finally determined that there was 
no likelihood of his taking Paris in a rush 
— and there are picturesque stories of the 
unwelcome knowledge being forced upon 
him just as he was celebrating his "victory" 
in champagne — he at once recognized the 
need of a change in tactics. Instead of be- 
sieging the capital he determined to pierce 
the French army, separating its left wing, 
including the British, from the right, which 
was based on the forts at Verdun and Toul. 
To this end all parts of the German line 
were stripped 
and forces con- 
centrated at a 
point between 
Sezanne and 
Vitry where the 
great drive was 
to be made. 
Upon the army 
corps com- 
manded by 
General von 
Buelow fell the 
burden of 
making the 
main assault. 
But to reen- 
force that com- 
mand Von Kluck 
withdrew por- 
tions of his force 
from the line 
confronting the 
French at Paris. 
They, quick to 
discover the tact, 
a d v a n c e d b y 
their left flank, 



recruits equipment 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



55 



reaching beyond the German right and 
threatening to get into their enemies' rear. 
This advance menaced the whole German 
army, and as day by day the French kept 
pushing forward by the left, Von Kluck 
withdrew his right until the whole position of 
his army was changed. After four days of 
this strategy the German general found his 
right wing enclosed in a sort of a monster V , 
with the angle to the west made up of the 
garrison of Paris, and that to the east, of the 
combined French and British armies. If the 



von Kluck took a chance on the Crown 
Prince's being able to keep the French busy 
on their centre, and fairly invited a flank 
attack. General JofFre took a chance on the 
allied armies being able to resist the Crown 
Prince at the centre, and delivered the flank 
attack. JofFre more wisely estimated the 
chances of war and won. 

The country about the Marne in which for 
a week or more 2,000,000 men swayed back 
and forth, charging madly and repelling 
charges with steel, ravaging the woods and 




Thousands of Belgian refugees reaching Holland 



two arms of this monstrous nut-cracker 
should close together, Von Kluck would be 
caught between and ground to powder. On 
September 7th they did in fact attack at the 
same moment, and for a time it appeared that 
the fate of Von Kluck's force was sealed. 
Only by savage fighting did he win clear. 

Had the Army of the Crown Prince on the 
German left been successful, or had its savage 
effort to pierce the French centre been suffi- 
ciently menacing to distract altogether the at- 
tention of General JofFre from the weakened 
condition of the German right, with its ex- 
posed flank, the German grand strategy 
might have won out. But there the fortune 
of war was against the Germans. General 



villages with a storm of shells and shrapnel, 
was one of the fairest parts of France. Its 
fertile fields now trampled into crimson mire 
were dotted by scores of trim little villages 
that now exist only as clusters of ruined homes 
with their tenants driven none knows where. 

The forces engaged during the seven davs' 
struggle exceeded 2,000,000, the Allies being 
credited with 1,500,000 men, the Germans 
with 900,000, though the superior ability of 
the latter to concentrate their forces at the 
point of attack nullified to some extent this 
discrepancy. More than in any prior strug- 
gle between the warring armies this battle 
was decided by superior strategy rather than 
by force of numbers, or more desperate fight- 



56 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




ing on the one side or the other. In his offi- 
cial report General French made it clear that 
for three days the apparent retirement upon 
Paris of the alhed force had been in fact a 
ruse, designed by him, in conference with 
General Joffre, to draw the Germans into a 
more untenable position. In fact. Von Kluck 
detected the stratagem before his enemies 
were quite ready for the joint attack with 
which they intended to open a decisive battle, 
and his columns were in full retreat on the 
6th before the French attack was delivered. 
By the 9th the Germans were 
forced back across the Maine. 
From the moment that the 
Army of Paris began to 
swing to thenorth and 
west enveloping Von 
K luck's right 
and menacing 
his communica 
tions there wa 
left for him 
but one hope 
— that the 
Crown Prince 
could pierce 
the F r e n c h 
centre near 
Sezanne, 
the French s 
this as a men 
as clearly as 
Germans 
saw it as a 
hope, and 
their cen- 
tre stood like a Holland dvke 
against the onrush of the 
German tide. Soon, instead 
of the French centre it was 
the German centre that was imperilled, for 
the retirement of Von Kluck left its right 
flank exposed. By the 10th of September 
the whole German army was in retreat from 
the ground it had won with such dash and 
daring, and the form of its retreat on the ex- 
treme right where Von Kluck commanded was 
very like a rout, with cannon and munitions 
of war abandoned, and whole regiments cut 
off and captured. Four days of hard fighting 
thatfollowed turned thefortunesof waragainst 
the Germans, who had already exulted in the 
prospect of feasting on the fleshpots of Paris. 
In ultimate history it is not improbable 
that the fame of Von Kluck will rest quite as 



V. 




securely on his successful retreat from the 
Marne as upon his almost unopposed march 
upon Paris. The former was by far the more 
difficult test of his generalship. Caught be- 
tween the hammer and anvil, outnumbered, 
with the morale of his army sorely suffering 
by the sudden transition from enthusiastic 
advance to precipitate retreat, he yet saved 
his army from the destruction which for a 
time seemed imminent. It was demon- 
strated in this retreat that the German soldier 
is not at his best in rearguard fighting. 
Advancing he comes on in dense 
columns, heedless of the execu- 
tion done by artillery to 
which so solid a forma- 
tion affords the best 
possible target, sing- 
ing his war songs, 
and pressing on 
irresistibly. But 
in retreat he is 
more inclined to 
straggle, and 
the f o r 1 o r n 
fighting of the 
rearguard, 
falling back as 
it fires with no 
hope of glory, 
but only the for- 
lorn hope of 
escape, seems 
not to accord with 
the Teutonic tem- 
ment. Airmen fly- 
ing high over the route 
of Von Kluck's retreat de- 
scribed the scene as one of the 
greatest confusion. The re- 
treat was by no means con- 
fined to the highways. Men alone and in 
groups could be seen running across the fields, 
jumping fences, or worming their way through 
hedges, without order or discipline. The 
fields were covered with abandoned arms 
and accoutrements, the roads blocked with 
wagons and disabled artillery. 

But the panic was only on the fringe 
of the army. In the main the movement 
was an orderly retreat, conducted with truly 
Teutonic precision to a new position prepared 
in advance by the prescience of the German 
General Staff. 

For amidst all the shouting and the 
triumph of the march upon Paris that 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




prudent and omniscient board of strategists 
had foreseen that something might happen 
to force their armies away from Paris again 
at the very point of victory. This possibil- 
ity was never admitted to the soldiers in the 
ranks, or to the people of Berlin. The latter 
were stirred by constant reports of victories, 
roused to riotous enthusiasm by parades of 
captured French cannon drawn down Unter 
den Linden, and reassured 
when Sedan Day passed 
without the news of the 
capture of Paris, by the as- 
surance that for strategic 
reasons General von Kluck 
was seeking a new line. But 
all the while along the Hills 
of Champagne and the Hills 
of the Ile-de- France men 
with picks and shovels — 
captured Belgians many of 
them — were working indus- 
triously under the eye of 
German engineer officers, 
digging trenches, throwing 
up redoubts, laying con- 
crete emplacements for can- 
non, and making all arrange- 
ments for a line of defence 
at which the retreating Ger- 
mans could make a stand 
against their now triumph- 
ant enemy. 

This line, indeed, was one 
originally designed by the 
h rench for their second line 
of defen e against an invad- Belgian drl 




ing foe. From La Fere to Rheims stretched a 
line of French fortresses which, when the hour 
of trial arrived, proved of no avail, theGermans 
cutting in between the most westerly and 
the Channel, thus turning the allied flank 
and forcing the abandonment of the forts 
without defence. At Laon and La Fere the 
German artillery now held the verv ground 
once occupied by the French forts, now dis- 
mantled. At Rheims the 
invaders were driven from 
and through the town back 
to the height's beyond, 
whence their heavy artil- 
lery, brought to France for 
the reduction of Paris, 
poured upon the cathedral 
city, and upon the cathedral 
itself, that deluge of shot 
and shell which brought 
ruin upon one of the noblest 
monuments of Gothic art 
in Europe, and roused the 
art-loving world to an agony 
of fruitless protest. 

The new line thus formed 
was at an average distance 
from Paris of about eighty 
miles. When the German 
fighting men, scarred and 
exhausted after the retreat 
of five days, threw them- 
selves into the trenches and 
faced again the foe that only 
a few days earlier thev had 
thought to be beaten, thev 
oliday costume looked back over a territory 



I HE NATIONS AT WAR 




Refugees in a Church in France 

of sixty miles, extending from near the Chan- 
nel almost to the eastern boundary of 
France, which they had won in a rush, but 
from which they had been fairly driven. 
They had lost heavily in men and guns. 
Driving rains and swampy country along the 
right of the German line took toll of the 
heavy artillery which the invaders had been 
rushing on to Paris, and which they could 
not withdraw with sufficient speed in the 
face of the advancing French. Amiens, 
Nancy, Luneville, all considerable towns, 
they had had to abandon after a brief occu- 
pation. 

While the right wing of the German army 
was thus forced far back to its new line, the 
more eastern line maintained more nearly the 
advanced position it had won. For a time 



tliefightingwas 
fiercest about 
V i t r y , and 
there it seemed 
that the Crown 
Prince's Army 
was to be 
beaten back 
and the Ger- 
man centre 
pierced. Had 
this advantage 
been gained by 
the French, 
nothing could 
have saved the 
wing c o m - 
mandedby Von 
Kluck. The 
Crown Prince, 
however, held 
his groun d 
stubbornly. 
On that part of 
the line the 
most notable 
change in the 
German posi- 
tion was that 
the forces 
which had en- 
veloped the his- 
toric fortress of 
Verdun, so that 
news of its cap- 
ture had been 
daily expected 
■ — was indeed 
falsely reported more than once — were forced 
back to the north. Toul, too, was wrested 
from German occupation, and Nancy was 
swept clear of the Kaiser's troops which, how- 
ever, fortified themselves strongly just north 
of the town. At only one point along the 
French eastern frontier was there a break 
in the line of defence; that was at St. Mihiel, 
and from that point too, the Germans were 
destined to be driven. 

In the main, however, the great and striking 
gains of the Allies were made in the west, 
where the retreat of the Germans at points 
extended over sixty miles. While the Eng- 
lish and French were strongly pressing the foe 
in front, the sorely shattered Belgian army 
was harassing him on the flank and rear, re- 
occupying Bruges, Ghent, and Courtai and 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



59 




even menacing 
Brussels. W hen 

Von Kl uck's 
and Von Bue- 
low's armies 
finallydropped, 

torn and ex- 
hausted, into 
the trenches 
prepared for 
them on the 
heights beyond 
Rheims,and on 
the hill crests 
alongtheAisne, 
they found a 
shelter sorely 
needed, for dis- 
aster was very 
close upon 
them. Nor 
were they given 
time to recup- 
erate, tor al- 
most without 
appreciable in- 
terval the Bat- 
1 1 e of t h e 
Marnewas suc- 
ceeded by the 
even longer 
and fiercer Bat- 
tle of the Aisne. 

An English 
correspondent, 
George Ren- 
wick, following 
the army in the 
rear — the ig- 
noble position to which in this war all 
war correspondents were relegated — gathered 
from wounded soldiers left behind some narra- 
tives illustrative of the fighting which they 
had seen. It must be remembered, however, 
that the individual soldier's knowledge of a 
general battle ranging along a front of one 
hundred miles or more is but fragmentary. 
Mr. Renwick's narrative, in part, follows: 

"Let me here give a short description, pro- 
vided by an officer wounded in the fighting, 
of the struggle which took place on the River 
Marne. 

"'We were in our positions early on Fri- 
day, September 4th,' he said, 'but we did 
not take part in the fighting on that day. 
During the whole of Friday and Saturday we 



Desperate stand of British artill 
of ten guns surprised Battery L, Roy 
it could get into action 



cry against odds. During the Battle of Mons a German battery 
al Horse Artillery, and killed most of its horses and men before 



had nothing to do but to listen to the sound 
of firing which was not far distant and to 
speculate as to the result. Late in the 
evening the order came instructing us to 
retreat, but in the course of our retirement 
during the night that order was counter- 
manded, and we advanced once more, taking 
up a strong position on sloping ground facing 
the river. 

"'Early on Sunday Germans approached 
in considerable numbers, with the apparent 
intention of outflanking us, for they poured 
in on our extreme left. "Hold the position," 
was the order we received, and I can tell you 
it was just the order we wished, for how they 
swarmed toward our position! Wave after 
wave approached, turned, slowed down, and 



6o 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Ghent, Belgium. In the tower at the left is the bell which for centuries has called the Belgians to war 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



twenty miles, driving an 
enemy before us which did 
not put up even a show of 
fight. They seldom turned 
even to treat us to a volley. 
It looked as though they 




fell away before the hurricane of lead with 
which we greeted them. 

"'God, but they were brave! One can't 
deny them that tribute. But their artillery 
for once did not seem to be as effective as 
usual, and their fire was strangely erratic. 

"'German soldiers, 
by the way, do no( aim 
at all at times. 
1 hey came near 
enough to allow •**•< 
us to see through 
our glasses the curious 
methods of the Ger- 
man riflemen. They 
do not put their rifles 
to their shoulders and 
take aim. They put 
the butt of the rifles 
under their arms and 
simply fire away, trusting to the effective 
ness of volleys. 

we 



"I lust- are the real dogs of « 



"'In the evening 
ments from the di- 
rection of Meaux, 
and as darkness 
fell we had pushed 
back for the time 
being the forces 
which had been 
thrown against us.' 
" Another officer, 
who w'a s also 
wounded in the 
fighting somewhat 
further from the 
extreme left near 
La Ferte-Gaucher, 
told me that the 
general engage- 
ment there was an ex- 
tremely hot one. It 
went on with varying 
results during the 
whole of Sunday night, 
1 ut the most severe 
righting took place on 
Monday morning. 

"Then,' he said, 
' the enemy's resistance 
collapsed in a strangelv 
sudden manner. Just 
as we began to advance 
I was knocked down, 
but I am told we ad- 
vanced something like 



received reenforce- 



Making friends with the Belgi 



1 In- Belgians use them to draw batteries of Lewis g 

had suddenly run completely out of ammu- 
nition.' 

"Another soldier was able to take up the 
story. In the 
course of their 
hurried retreat 
the Germans 
eft the ground 
simply littered 
with dead and 
wounded, 
though they 
could be seen 
carrying off 
many of the 
latter. A Ger- 
man detach- 
ment was cut 
oil and the ad- 
vancing forces 
took ten guns 
and several 
hundred pris- 
oners. Some 
of the prisoners con- 
firmed the statement 
that the enemy were 
very short of ammu- 
nition, and added that 
they were compelled to 
husband their rations. 
"The German losses 
must everywhere have 
been exceedingly 
heavy. An infantry 
officer wounded near 




62 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





A company of the Royal Engineers of the British army spent three weeks 
in a sand pit 



Meaux on the 
8th told me 
two German 
army corps 
were in action 
during that 
day and on the 
7th, and that 
in one trench 
alone he 
counted 600 
dead. Even on 
Tuesday, it 
would appear, 
the German 
commander did 
not perceive 
that his south- 
ward move- 
men t was 
placing him in 
very consider- 
able danger. On that day the 
battle changed with dramatic swift- 
ness. The Allies assumed a vigor- 
ous offensive at the very point at 
which the German General had 
supposed them not to be strong 
enough to make his southern ad- 
vance dangerous. 

"Here the British were in great 
strength, and for the first time in 
the war, on anything like a large 
scale, they showed the Germans 
what a British frontal attack was 
like. 'They shelled us with their 
big guns,' said a Frenchman who 
took part with the French force 
aiding the British, 'but the fire was 
not very effective, and then we 
moved forward. It was a sight to 
see. There was almost too much 
"elan" at times in our moves for- 
ward, and some severe losses were 
experienced at times, I noticed, by 
the troops neglecting to make 
trenches and contenting themselves 
with what proved to be ineffective 
cover. But nothing could stay the 
steady advance. 

"'At one little village we got 
right home with the bayonet, and 
we could see that we were dining 
dead-tired men in front of us. At 
times, however, they rallied with 
an effort. 



T HE NATIONS A T \Y A R 



63 



'Be y o n d 
the village they 
had made 
trenches, and 
it required a 
costly charge 
to clear them 
out. We had 
toadvanceover 
barbed wire, 
and as we did 
so it was ter- 
rible to see how 
one's comrades 
fell. We 
reached the 
trenches and 
cleared them. 
Then came ten 
minutes or so 
of unopposed 
advance, and 

then another fusillade, followed by 
a quarter of an hour of unceasing 
slaughter. 

"'On again, but that's where I 
got shot in my foot. We kept 
straight on, I know.'" 

In ultimate history it is not im- 
probable that the fame of Von 
Kluck will rest quite as securely on 
his successful retreat from the 
Maine as upon his almost unop- 
posed march upon Paris. The 
former was by far the more difficult 
test of his generalship. Caught be- 
tween the hammer and anvil, out- 
numbered, with the morale of his 
army sorely suffering by the sudden 
transition from enthusiastic ad- 
vance to precipitate retreat, he yet 
saved his army from the destruction 
which for a time seemed imminent. 
It was demonstrated in this retreat 
that the German soldier is not at 
his best in rear-guard fighting. Ad- 
vancing he comes on in dense col- 
umns, heedless of the execution 
done by artillery to which so solid 
a formation affords the best possible 
target, singing his war songs and 
pressing on irresistibly. But in re- 
treat he is more inclined to straggle, 
and the forlorn fighting of the rear 
guard seems not to accord with 
the Teutonic temperament. 




Wounded bn 




What a Zeppelin bomb did in Antwerp 



CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS TREATED IN CHAPTER II 



August 4. Germans attack Liege, and cross the French bor- 
der near Mars-la-Tour. 

August 7. Germans enter Liege, leaving some forts in Belgian 
possession. 

August 8. British expeditionary force lands on Continent. 
French take Mulhausen, after battle at Altrich. 

August 9. Germans retreat in Alsace. 

August 11. German victory at Liege complete. French 
forced back in Alsace. Germans pushing into France be- 
tween Verdun and Longwy. 

August 12. Germans move on Brussels. 

August 13. Battles at Diest, Haelen, and Egheeze in Bel- 
gium. Stories of German atrocities in Belgium first become 
current. 

igust 1 ;. Armies ot 
248 mile battle-front. 

August 16. Battle at Dinant. French take the offensive at 
Luneville. 

August 17. Belgian government moves to Antwerp. 

August 20. Germans enter Brussels. 

August 21. Germans capture Ghent and begin assault on 
Namur. 

August 22. Battle along twenty-mile front near Charleroi 
begun. English and Germans fight on historic field of 
Waterloo. 

August 23. Beginning of battle of Mons. 

August 24. British retreat from Mons beginning Sir John 
French's prolonged and skillful retreat upon Paris. 

August 25. Germans capture five Namur forts and pursue 
French to the southward. 



August 27. Germans push Allies back, take Malines, and 

Paris prepares for a siege. 
August 28. Germans sack and burn Louvain. 

29. German force withdrawn from Belgium to meet 

Russians. Germans march on La Fere. 
August 30. German advance upon Paris uninterrupted. 
September 2. French move their capital to Bordeaux. 
September ;. Germans take La Fere and Amiens and move to 

attack Laon and Rheims. Invaders now twenty-five miles 

from Paris. 
September 4. Germans suddenly abandon Paris drive and 

move eastward. Right wing under Von Kluck driven back 

by French under General Gallieni, commandant of Paris, 

and British under Sir John French. 
September 5. Germans take Rheims and three forts at Mau- 

beuge. Belgians flood country around Malines and trap 

Germans. 
September 7. Allies drive Germans back in 160 mile battle 

from Nanteuil to Verdun. Paris saved. 
September 8. British and French win great battle on the 

Marne and the Ourcq. 
September 9. British cross the Marne, Germans steadily 

retreating. 
September 10. British and French pursuing Germans. Gen- 
eral von Stein admits defeat. Belgians renew activities, 

retaking Termonde, Aerschot, and Diest. 
September 14. Amiens and Rheims reoccupied by the 

French. Germans after seven days' steady retreat establish 

'hemselves on heights along the Aisne and await battle. 







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66 



THK NATIONS AT WAR 




CHAPTER III 



BATTLE OF THE AISNE ON THE FIGHTING LINES THE 

CRIME AT RHEIMS THE FALL OF ANTWERP THE BELGIANS' 

LAST STAND — FIGHTING IN FLANDERS YPRES AND THE YSER 



i^V 




HAT is 

called 
the Bat- 
t 1 e of 
theAisne 



scrib ed 
as lasting twenty-two 
days, or from the 12th 
of September to Octo- 
ber 4, 1914. But the 
name of the battle and 
its duration are alike 
fixed arbitrarily. It 
was quite as much the 
Battle of the Somme 
or the Oise, for it raged 
along the banks of both 
of these rivers as well 
as 111 territory far re- 
moved from all three. 



its plan may be roughly determined by a 
study of the map on page 70. This 

shows the line of the two belligerents con- 
fronting each other and extending across 
France to the southeast with Rheims at the 
centre. The Germans once across the Aisne 
and on the heights back of Rheims had speed- 
ily dug themselves in and made their position 
what may properly be called impregnable, as 
despite continuous fighting they still main- 
tained themselves in that position as late as 
August, 1916. All along this line the fighting 
was constant. The Franco-British attack 
took the form of the extension of their lines 
to the northwest as shown by the arrowhead 
at the end of the allied line on the map. At 
this time the Allies outnumbered the Germans 
heavily. When General French found on 
September 12th that he was no longer pursu- 
ing a retreating army, but face to face with 
the Germans, halted and awaiting attack 



A Belgian sentry 

As for duration it might 
almost be said to have 
continued for eighteen 
months or more for it 
merged insensibly into 
the fighting in Flanders, 
and the names of the prin- 
cipal towns and cities 
which occur in the story 
of the Battle of the Aisne 
were still in the day's 
news that told of the 
allied drive in midsum- 
mer of 1916. 

As a detached battle, 
therefore, the Battle of 
the Aisne was practically 
inconclusive. In a way 




Belgian recruits parade London streets 
&7 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Searching for wounded by night. The Red Cross Corps sees 
batants, since its members go on the firing line 

behind heavy intrenchments, he recognized 
the necessity for a change in tactics from any 
further direct frontal attack. His first task 
was to get his troops across the Aisne. This 
was done by both British and French on pon- 
toon bridges, constructed underheavyfire,and 
in his report General French compliments one 



regiment for hav- 
ing crossed the 
river "in single 
file under consid- 
erable shell fire, 
by means of a 
broken girder of a 
bridge which was 
not entirely sub- 
merged." When 
beyond the river, 
the allied forces 
found themselves 
on a level! plain, 
rising gently as it 
receded from the 
river to a line of 
hills, the crests of 
which were 
crowned by Ger- 
man artillery on 
prepared em- 
placements, while 
on the rising 
slopes were lines 
of German rifle 
pits. Norwerethe 
assailants permit- 
ted to prepare in 
security for their 
attack on this 
strong position. 
Twice the Ger- 
mans poured out 
of their trenches 
and in solid col- 
umns lateatnight 
rushed on the 
French and Eng- 
lish in vain efforts 
to dislodge them 
from the foothold 
they had won. 
There was fight- 
ingforweeks back 
and forth over the 
Plateau of Cra- 
onne. Now the 
charging line sung 
the "Marseillaise," or "Tipperary," and then 
the German cries for Deutschland rung out 
over the same blood-stained plain. There were 
villages occupied tw 7 ice in a week by each of 
the warring hosts, villages in which the fight- 
ing was hand to hand in the streets, and on 
which, though within easy range, neither side 



almost as much fighting as the com 
to assist the wounded 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



69 



dared to turn its 
artillery for fear 
of killing its own 
men. Rheimswas 
held in turn by 
both enemies and 
finally bom- 
barded by tin- 
Germans with re- 
sults that shocked 
the art-loving 
world — but of 
that more here- 
after. A condi- 
tion of war which 
afterward became 
commonplace 
enough, but 
which at the time 
seemed to all the 
world unprece 
dented for it s 
cold-blooded bru- 
tality, shocked 
the American 
journalist, IrvinS. 
Cobb, into writ- 
ing this ghastly 
description: 

"As I recall 
now we had come 
through the gate 
of the school- 
house to where 
the automobiles 
stood when a puff 
of wind, blowing 
to us from the 
left, which meant 
from across the 
b attlefront, 
brought to our 
noses a certain 
smell which we all 
knew full well. 

"'You get it, I 
see,' said the Ger- 
man officer who 
stood alongside 

me. 'It comes from three miles off, but you 
can get it five miles distant when the wind is 
strong. That' — and he waved his left arm 
toward it as though the stench had been a 
visible thing — 'that explains why tobacco is 
so scarce with us among the staff" back yon- 
der in Laon. All the tobacco which can be 




Igians in their line pit 



complete cover sec 
Sims 



by bridging the openings made tor the 



spared is sent to the men in the front 
trenches. As long as they smoke and keep 
on smoking they can stand — that! 

"'You see,' he went on painstakingly, 
'the situation out there at Cerny is like this: 
The French and English, but mainly the 
English, held the ground first. We drove 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 







THE NATIONS AT WAR 




English sportsmen's battalion on the march. Great Britain has a unique regiment in her new army, made up exclusively 
of sportsmen, including polo players, huntsmen, football stars, amateur boxers, big game hunters, and devotees of all sorts of 
athletic recreations 

them back and they lost very heavily. — a stretch four miles long and half a mile 
In places their trenches were actually full wide that is literally carpeted with bodies of 



of dead and dyin 
men when we took 
those trenches. 

"'You could have 
buried them merely 
by filling up the 
trenches with earth. 
And that old beet- 
sugar factory which 
you saw this noon 
when we were at 
General von Zwehl's 
headquarters — it was 
crowded with badly 
wounded Englishmen. 
"'At once they ral- 
lied and forced us 
back, and now it was 
our turn to lose 
heavily. That was 
, nearly three weeks 
I ago, and since then 
the ground over which 
we fought has been 
debatable ground, ly- 
ing between our lines 
and the enemy's lines 




General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, credited with having saved 
the British left wing 



dead men. They 
weren't all dead at 
first. For two days 
and nights our men 
in the earthworks 
heard the cries of 
those who still lived, 
and the sound of 
them almost drove 
them mad. There 
was no reaching the 
wounded, though, 
either from our lines 
or from the Allies' 
lines. Those who 
tried to reach them 
were themselves 
killed. Now there 
are only dead out 
there — thousands of 
dead, I think. And 
they have been there 
twenty days. Once in 
a while a shell strikes 
that old sugar mill or 
falls into one of those 
trenches. Then — 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Defenders of Antwerp h 



ing the Ge 



Belgian infantry firing from hastily constr 
of Antwerp 



icted trenches, during the investment 



well, then, it is worse 
for those who serve in 
the front lines.' 

'"But in the name 
of God, man,' I said, 
'why don't they call a 
truce — both sides — 
and put that horror 
underground ?' 

"He shrugged his 
shoulders. 

"'War is different 
now, 'he said. 'Truces 
are not the fashion.'" 

Despairing of fur- 
ther progress in the 
face of the sturdy re- 
sistance of the Ger- 
mans, Sir John French 
left the fighting at that 
point to the French, 




Hospital wrecked by the German invaders. Patients fled to the open fields 




French artillery in action, the gunners trying to protect their ear-drums from the shock. During Von Kluclc's great drive on 
Paris, the French artillery did wonderful service in holding their ground to the last possible moment then retreating and taking 
up another defensive position 



and began reaching around the German 
right flank with the purpose of cutting 
Von Kluclc's communications. Had the 
effort succeeded there would have been 
a fair chance of destroying at least Von 
Kluclc's army, but the Germans met the 
menace in two ways. As fast as General 
French advanced Von Kluck extended his 




French infantry awaiting the order to ad\ 



right swinging it back and northward until 
it formed almost a right angle with the main 
line of the German armies. But this strategy 
itself endangered the German line. If Ger- 
man troops were continually rushed to the 
right their line would have been weakened at 
the centre, and might have been pierced by a 
determined attack by the French. Accord- 
ingly the Germans attacked first, 
trying to drive the French out of 
Rheims, and also to pierce the allied 
lines near the Argonne Forest. Had 
this been effected Verdun would 
have fallen, and the quickest path- 
way from Germany into France 
which that fortress barred for the 
early years of the war would have 
been opened. The long, circuitous 
route through Belgium which re- 
quired more than 150,000 men to 
guard could then be abandoned. 
But although the Crown Prince and 
General von Heeringen united in a 
drive against the French lines they 
were beaten back. Virtually all 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



75 




Siege guns in action under cover of a forest. This picture shows two heavy German mortars firing on the French. The gu 
are elevated at a high angle so that the heavy projectiles fall almost vertically on the enemy's fotts 



the operations conducted by either side 
which we sum up under the name of the 
Battle of the Aisne resulted in failure, and the 
end of the grand strategy was but a drawn 
battle. For months the long curved line 
across France remained so little changed that 
it is almost impossible to depict the different 
positions on a map, while a gain of a few 
hundred metres by either side was triumph- 
antly announced as a victorious advance. 

Only to the westward, where Sir 
John French was trying to outflank 
Von Kluck, did the line change. 
There, as each belligerent contin- 
ually extended his lines toward the 
northwest, new territory was con- 
tinually occupied until the serried 
rows of trenches, bomb proofs, and 
wire entanglements reached all the 
way to the sea. 

In the course of the fighting on 
the centre of the line there was in- 
flicted on the Cathedral at Rheims 
that irreparable damage which 
awakened at once deep regret and 
bitter resentment throughout the 
civilized world. The Germans 
claimed for a time that the de- 



struction wrought upon this historic and 
beautiful piece of Gothic architecture, long 
held to be the most perfect in Europe, was 
due to accident. But when several official 
commissions demonstrated the fact that this 
was impossible, that the Cathedral rising in 
its colossal bulk in the midst of the two and 
three story houses of Rheims was so promi- 
nent an object thatut could not have been 
struck save by design, German officials at 




7 6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Stone bridge destroyed at Liege; new ponto 



tie in distar 



Berlin said that it was the fault of the French on the tower of the Cathedral thereby making 
who made Rheims a fortress. Later they it properly the subject of artillery attack, 
claimed that the French had mounted guns Mr. E. Ashmead Bartlett, who visited the 

Cathedral shortly 
after the bombard- 
ment, gathered from 
eye-witnesses the 
material for a pic- 
turesque account of 
the disaster which 
he published in Col- 
lier's Weekly. After 
commenting upon 
the fact that the 
Cathedral had sur- 
vived the supposedly 
barbarous wars of 
the Middle Ages 
only to be irrepar- 
ably wrecked by ex- 
ponents of twentieth 
century culture, he 
goes on to say: 

looking down upon the town from the fortifications vJUr knock W3S 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



77 




Bridge at Termonde, blown up to check the German advance 

answered by a priest, who, on seeing that we of them inside and hoisted the Red Cross on 
were English, at once allowed us to enter, the spire in order to protect the Cathedral, 
The sacred father then told 
us in language that was not 
altogether priestly, when 
speaking of the soldiers 
whose guns were still thun- 
dering outside, of how the 
Germans had bombarded 
the Cathedral for two hours 
that morning, landing over 
fifty shells in its immediate 
neighborhood, but, luckily, 
the distance being very 
great, over eight kilometres, 
the solid stonework of the 
building had resisted the 
successive shocks of these 
six-inch howitzers, and how 
it was with that ancient and 
priceless glass which had 
suffered the most. 

"'Monsieur, they respect 

I • tx, , - , r Copyn 

nothing. We placed scores A bridge at Amiens, repaired by the Germans 




onal News Scrvii 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Rheims Cathedral before it was shattered by German shell fire 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Ruined Rheims as seen from on»of the Cathed 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



and yet they fire at it 
just the same and have 
killed their own soldiers. 
Pray Monsieur make 
these facts known all 
over Europe and Amer- 
ica.' 

"A great wave of sun- 
shine lit up a sombre 
picture of carnage and 
suffering at the western 
end, near the main en- 
trance. Here, on pdes 
of straw, lay the 
wounded Germans in all 
stages of suffering. Then- 
round, shaven heads, 
thin cheeks, and bluish- 
gray uniforms con- Food for these 
trasted strangely with 

the sombre black of the silent priests attend- 
ing them, while in the background the red 
trousers of the French soldiers were just vis- 
ible on the steps outside. Most of the 
wounded had dragged their straw behind the 
great Gothic pillars, as if seeking shelter 
from their own shells. The priest conducted 
us to one of the aisles beneath the window 
where the shell had entered that morning. 
A great pool of blood lay there, staining the 
column just as the blood of Thomas a Becket 
must have stained the altar of Canterbury 
seven centuries before. 

" 'That, Monsieur, is the blood of the French 





A military bluff. With a wine barrel and an old cart the (it 
what, at a distance, looked like a mortar 



gendarme who was killed at eleven this 
morning. But he did not go alone.' The 
priest pointed to two more recumbent figures, 
clad in the bluish gray of the Kaiser's legions. 
There they lay stiff and cold as the effigies 
around them. All three had perished by the 
same shell. Civilian doctors of Rheims 
moved among the wounded, who for the 
most part maintained an attitude of stoical 
indifference to everything around them. 
Food is scarce in the town, and meat almost 
unobtainable, but in the centre of the Cathe- 
dral transept lay the raw quarter of a slaugh- 
tered ox, a horrid touch of materialism amidst 
a scene otherwise lacking all 
sense of reality. We moved 
around collecting fragments of 
the precious glass which the 
Kaiser had so unexpectedly 
thrown within our reach. We 
were brought back to realities by 
hearing the unmistakable whistle 
of an approaching shell, followed 
by a deafening explosion, and 
more fragments of glass came 
tumbling from aloft. The weary, 
war-worn Teutons instinctively 
huddled closer to the Gothic 
arches." 

It will be remembered that in 
the fierce eagerness of the Ger- 
mans to reach France they swept 
by Antwerp without stopping to 
take it. Now, balked of their 
prize, Paris, and driven back, 
their attention was turned again 



rmans constru 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



81 



toward this considerable /seaport, 
the strategic position of which / is such 
that Napoleon once said of it, / "Ant- 




nmy Atkins" to use the 
bayonet 



werp is a pistol aimed at England's heart." 
Now the extension of the German line to 
meet Sir John French's flanking movement 
impelled Von Kluck to undertake the capture 
of the city. It was a constant 
menace in Belgian hands to his 
flank and rear. As a fortress it was 
second only to Paris. Its harbor, 
the River Scheldt, opened 
to the sea. Holland con- 
trolled the river's mouth so 
that only respect for the 
neutrality of that nation — 
to which the Germans could j">', 
hardly appeal after their 
treatment of Belgium — 
stood in the way of Ant- 
werp's being continually 
supplied with fresh troops 
and munitions of war by 
the British. Moreover, it 
required 150,000 troops to 
invest it, and these men Von 
Kluck needed sorely on his 
battleline. They could only 
be relieved by making Ant- 
werp a German possession, 
and accordingly on the 29th of Sep- 
tember, while the Battle of the 
Aisne was being fought bitterly all 
the way from Verdun to Arras, 
the attack was made. 



Antwerp was surrounded by a ring of forts 
at a distance of about twelve miles from the 
city. They were of the sort deemed impreg- 
nable before this war, but withstood 
the fire of the great German guns 
called "Busy Berthas," after the 
daughter of Heir Krupp, only three 
days. It would have been wise had 
the authorities of Antwerp, when the 
first fort fell, imitated the prudent 
course of the burgomaster of Brussels 
and made prompt surrender to the 
German invaders. For there was no 
adequate force present to defend the 
city. The Belgian army had already 
been so badly cut to pieces that a 
scant twenty thousand garrisoned the 
town and its defences. A foolish relief 
expedition of about 8,000 British 
marines and blue jackets was sent to 
the city, but about 2,000 were disabled by 
the enemy's fire and as many forced over the 
line into Holland, where in accordance with 
international law they were disarmed and 
interned for the period of the war. Indeed 
their mission proved more harmful than 
helpful, for they enraged the Germans and 

\ 




Boys play only one game in England now 



82 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



General Pau, the 
one-armed veteran of 
the French armv 




\ 



caused a bombardment of the city for which, 
but for their presence, there would have 
been no excuse. The bombardment, how- 
ever, was conducted more as an object 
lesson than with intent to destroy. The 
artillerists avoided hitting historical edifices 
or great public buildings with such complete 
success as to entirely discredit the plea that 
in the case of the Cathedral at Rheims the 
destruction had been due to accident. While 
the bombardment lasted about thirty-six 
hours it resulted only in the destruction of 
certain limited quarters in the town, and the 
loss of life was not serious. The panic, 
however, caused by it and by the rapid and 
successful capture or passage of the forts 
by the German storming parties was terri- 



fying. That flight of a whole people was 
strikingly described by E. Alexander Powell, 
a British correspondent in Scribner's Maga- 
zine, from which the following account is 
taken: 

"No one who witnessed the flight from 
Antwerp will ever be able to erase it from 
his memory. No words can describe its 
pathos, its miseries, and its horrors. It 
was not a flight; it was a stampede. The 
sober, slow-thinking, slow-moving Flemish 
townspeople were suddenly transformed 
into a herd of terror-stricken cattle. So 
complete was the German enveloping 
movement that only three avenues of es- 
cape remained open: westward, by the 
St. Nicholas-Lokeren Road, to Ghent and 
Bruges; northeastward into Holland, and 
down the Scheldt toward Flushing. Of 
the four hundred thousand fugitives — for the 
exodus was not confined to the people of Ant- 
werp, but included the entire population of 
the countryside for thirty miles around — 
probably a quarter of a million escaped by 
river. Everything that could float was 




Sir Douglas Haig — successor to Sir John Frenc 
King George 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



pressed into service: merchant steamers, 
dredgers, ferry-boats, barges, canal-boats, 
tugs, fishing-smacks, yachts, scows, row- 
boats, launches, even' extemporized rafts. 
There was no attempt at maintaining disci- 
pline or order. The fear-frantic people piled 
aboard until there was not even standing- 
room upon the vessels' decks. They were 
as packed with humanity as are the New 
York subway trains on a Saturday noon. 
Of all the thousands who fled by river but 
an insignificant proportion were supplied 
with food, or with warm clothing, or had 
space in which to lie down. Yet through 
two nights and two days they huddled to- 
gether on the open decks, while the great 
guns tore to pieces the city they had left be- 
hind them. As my launch threaded its way 
up the crowded river after the first night's 
bombardment, we seemed to pass through a 
wave of sound — a great moan of mingled an- 
guish and misery and fatigue and hunger from 
the homeless thousands adrift upon the waters. 
"The scenes along the highways leading 



83 

Field Marshal of the 
British Army, Kitch- 
J ener of Khartoum 





Enlisted to fight England; now fighting for her. Ulster vol- 
unteers being inspected by Sir Edward Carson 



toward Ghent and to the Dutch frontier were 
even more appalling, for here the soldiers of 
the retreating field army and the fugitive 
civilians were mixed in inextricable confusion. 
By mid-afternoon on Wednesday the main 
highway from Antwerp to Ghent was jammed 
from ditch to ditch with a solid stream of 
hastening humanity, and the same was true of 
every road, every lane, every foot-path lead- 
ing away from the advancing Germans. 

"I doubt if the world has ever seen so 
pathetic, so heart-breaking, so terrible a pro- 
cession. It seemed as though no wheeled 
vehicle had been left in Antwerp. There 
were people in motor cars, with others stand- 
ing on the running-boards and clinging to the 
hoods and mud-guards; there were people in 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



s 5 



carriages, in delivery wagons, in moving-vans, 
in farm-carts, in omnibuses, in carts drawn by 
dogs, on bicycles, on horseback, and thousands 
upon tens of thousands in the frantic throng 
afoot. I saw men pushing their wives and 
children in wheelbarrows piled high with 
bedding. I saw sturdy young peasants 
carrying their aged parents in their arms. 
I saw monks in woollen 
robes and sandals bear- 
ing wounded men on 
stretchers. I saw 
white-faced nuns urg- 
ing forward groups of 
war-orphaned children 
who had been confided 
to their care. I saw 
mothers, so weak and 
ill that they could 
scarcely totter for- 
ward, with week-old 
babies in their arms. I 
saw priests assisting 
the feeble and the 
wounded. I saw women 
of fashion, in fur coats 
and high-heeled shoes, 
staggering under the 
weight of the belong- 
ings they were carrying 
in sheet-wrapped 
bundles upon their 
backs. I saw white- 
haired men and women 
grasping the harness of 
the gun-teams or the 
stirrup-leathers of the 
troopers who, them- 
selves exhausted from 
days of fighting, slept 
in their saddles as they 
rode. I saw springless 
farm-wagons filled 
with wounded sol- 
diers, with bandaged 
heads and arms, and 
with piteous white faces, and through the 
straw beneath them the blood dripped 
dripped . . . dripped, leaving 
a crimson trail along the road. 

"The confusion was beyond all imagina- 
tion, the clamor deafening: the rattle and 
clank of batteries, the trample of hoofs, the 
cracking of whips, the throb of motor cars, 
the curses of the drivers, the moans of the 
wounded, the cries of women, the whimpering 




Keeping watch in Flanders. German scouts trying 
locate the enemy from a tree 



of frightened children, threats, pleadings, 
oaths, screams, imprecations — and the shuf- 
fle, shuffle of countless feet. And the fields 
and ditches between which these processions 
of disaster passed were strewn with the pros- 
trate forms of those who, from sheer ex- 
haustion, could go no farther. Within a 
few hours after the exodus began, the coun- 
tryside for miles around 
was as bare of food as 
the Sahara is of grass. 
By this I do not mean 
that there was a 
scarcity of food; I 
mean that there was 
literally nothing to 
eat. Near Capellen a 
well-to-do resident of 
Antwerp eagerly ex- 
changed his $5,000 
motor car for food for 
his starving family. 
Time after time I saw 
the famished fugitives 
pause at farmhouses 
and offer all of their 
pitifully few posses- 
sions for a loaf of 
bread, and the country 
people, with tears 
streaming down their 
cheeks, could only 
shake their heads. I 
saw prosperous look- 
ing men and smartly- 
gowned women, and 
wounded soldiers, pull 
up turnips from the 
fields, and devour them 
raw — for there was 
nothing else. It will 
probably never be 
known how many 
people perished during 
that awful flight from 
hunger, exposure, and 
exhaustion; many more, certainly, than lost 
their lives during the bombardment. Near 
one small town on the Dutch frontier twenty 
children were born during the night, in the 
open fields, the mothers being without beds, 
without shelter, and without medical at- 
tention." 

Just at the end the Belgian troops which 
for hours had conducted their retreat through 
the city in good order were thrown into panic. 



86 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



By some blunder the pontoon bridge, the 
sole means of crossing the Scheldt, was blown 
up. Thirty thousand soldiers were still in 
and about Antwerp and when these reached 




An aerial duel within sight of Ypres. A German aeroplane, flying high over Ypres, 
was attacked by four British biplanes, and in spite of the heavy shrapnel fire from German 
guns the British machines closed around their quarry and forced it to the ground 

the river front and found their escape cut off 
they lost all semblance of discipline or order. 
Some commandeered the few vessels re- 
maining in the river, and made their way 



across to safety- Others fled across the 
country to be captured by the enemy or driven 
across the line into Holland, there to be 
interned until the end of the war. The road 
to Ghent, the chief way 
of escape, was so packed 
with soldiers and civil- 
ians that a correspond- 
ent said that to pro- 
ceed against that panic- 
stricken mob would have 
been as impossible as to 
paddle a canoe up the 
rapids at Niagara. The 
river was as crowded 
with vessels, their decks 
packed with refugees, as 
Fifth Avenue is with' 
vehicles on a pleasant 
afternoon in winter. In 
all 250,000 of the 400,- 
000 inhabitants of Ant- 
werp fled. The rest 
were hiding in cellars or 
in the backs of their 
houses when the trium- 
phantGermans marched 
along the empty streets 
to the strains of their 
military bands or the 
more exultant notes of 
their own songs. 

It was a marvelous 
army that marched 
through the old Belgian 
town. It was little 
scarred by conflict, for 
the prize had been taken 
at but slender cost. Bat- 
tery after battery of 
field artillery rumbled 
along the streets, and 
eye-witnesses report that 
although these guns had 
been in action for 
thirty-six hours the 
horses were groomed as 
for a parade and the har- 
ness polished till it shone 
again. Every regiment 
had its band. The cav- 
alry was preceded by 
rumbling kettle drums and blaring trumpets, 
behind which followed the Uhlans with their 
forest of lances and fluttering flags, the cuiras- 
siers in helmets and breast plates of burnished 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



87 



steel, bluejackets from the ships which had 
not yet dared to take the sea, Bavarians in 
dark blue, Saxons in pale blue, and Austrians 
in uniforms of silver gray made up the trium- 
phal procession which 
poured through abso- 
lutely deserted streets. 
But leaving behind this 
spectacular army the 
main body of the Ger- 
man troops pressed 
straight through Ant- 
werp in pursuit of the 
thoroughly discouraged 
Belgian army. Of King 
Albert's troops there 
were hardly more than 
50,000 left. They had 
every reason to be dis- 
couraged, disorganized, 
and demoralized. Brus- 
sels, their capital, had 
fallen, their king and 

government had fled 

first to Antwerp, and 

were now fugitives along 

theroadtoOstend. They 

had seen the speedy fall 

of their greatest for- 
tresses, Liege and 

Namur. They knew of 

the obliteration of such 

beautiful and pictur- 
esque unfortified towns 

as Louvain, Termond, 

and Malines. They had 

been left to bear the 

burden of conflict prac- 
tically alone, for the 

little aid rendered by the 

hindful of British sent to 

theirassistance had been 

more of an irritation to 

their enemies than a 

help in time of need. 
Yet this disheartened 

army pulled itself to- 
gether and on the banks 

of the sluggish Yser and 

amidst the network of 

canals in Flanders 

fought desperately and 

successfully for the retention of the last bit of 

their native soil left to them. 

While their main army pursued the re- 
treating Belgians the German staff, with the 



admirable system which characterizes their 
nation, set to work to restore Antwerp to its 
normal condition. The waterworks cut bv 
shells were repaired. Scientific sanitation 




^/'"Sf^.*^ 



Warneford destroys a Zeppelin. Few men have won greater fame in this war than 
Flight Sub-Lieutenant R. A. J. Warneford, R. N., who was given the Victoria Cross for 
destroying a Zeppelin near Ghent by dropping a bomb on it from his aeroplane. Warne- 
ford was killed a few days later 

checked at its very start an epidemic that 
was threatening the city. The odor of dis- 
infectants supplanted that of powder smoke. 
The electric lights, long extinguished for fear 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Watching for Germans 

of German Zeppelins, blazed forth once more, 
for Antwerp was now a German city. The 
reopened post office sold German stamps, and 
those bearing the head of King Albert dis- 
appeared. Surest sign of all the German 
word "Verboten" stared at the passerby 
almost as frequently as in Germany itself. 
Proclamations posted in every public square 
called upon the citizens to refrain from any 
hostile act which "might lead to the demoli- 
tion of your beautiful 
city." 

Meanwhile the main 
German army swept on 
to the westward, partly 
in pursuit of the fleeing 
Belgians, partly in order 
to secure seaports on the 
North Sea and English 
Channel. The entrance 
to Antwerp was blocked 
by the control of the 
Scheldt's mouth by neu- 
tral Holland. Kiel and 
Cuxhaven were too far 
from the English coast to 
serve as effective bases 
for German naval demon- 
strations. Calais was the 
port for which the Ger- 
mans really yearned. But 
for the moment they were 
compelled to be content 
with Ostend and Zee- 
brugge, the port of 



Bruges. Nei- 
ther of these 
ever proved 
serviceable for 
naval oper- 
ations, being 
too shallow. 

The fleeing 
Belgian army, 
now in the very 
southwestern 
corner of Bel- 
g i u m , had 
come into 
touch with the 
left wing of 
the allied arm- 
ies which we 
have seen men- 
acing Von 
Kluck's com- 
munications by extending northward. When 
this junction was affected the allied line ex- 
tended unbroken from Nieuport, on the Eng- 
lish Channel, through France to the meeting- 
place of that country with Germany and 
Switzerland, a distance of about 260 miles 
While there was fighting all along this line, it 
became apparent early in October that the 
ambition of the Germans for the capture 
of Calais would cause the main struggle to 




This fieldpiece was hit sq 



larely on the muzzle by a she 
can be plainly seen 



The rifling inside the barrel 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



89 



be in that sec- 
tion of France 
and Belgium 
known as 
Flanders. So 
great was the 
struggle which 
raged there for 
months that 
it seems extra- 
ordinary to 
know that the 
territory af- 
fected was less 
in area than 
the District of 
Columbia, 
hardly greater 
indeed than 
that included 
within the city 
limits of New York or Chicago. Vet in 
that tmy corner of the world, not a mere 
battle, but practically a war was fought. 

It was a difficult country for the operations 
of armies. Sand dunes bordering the cold 
gray waters of the North Sea; sluggish tidal 
rivers making their way inland and connected 
for plodding barges by canals locked against 
the rise and fall of the tides; the country 
everywhere water-logged and at points as 





How a road was bl 



Copyright by 1 

Belgian trenches near Ghent 



much as nine feet below the level of the sea, 
protected by dvkes which the troops used first 
for breastworks, and afterward as a refuge 
from the angry waters when the Belgians 
flooded their fields rather than surrender 
this last bit of their native land — such was 
the topography of the country in which the 
hostile armies grappled early in October after 
the fall of Antwerp, and in which they were 
still battling when the midnight chimes 
ushered in the Happy 
New Year of 1915. The 
reflections of the soldiers 
in the flooded, frozen 
trenches must have been 
rather cynical at that 
midnight hour. 

No equal period of 
time in the world's his- 
tory, no such limited 
space in the globe's geog- 
raphy ever witnessed so 
much of the horrors of 
war as Flanders during 
that struggle in dreari- 
est winter. Not the 
soldiers alone, but hap- 
less civilians felt war's 
scourge in its utmost 
savagery. The district 
was densely populated by 
a people mainly agricul- 
tural, but engaged in 
some degree in small 
home manufacturing in- 



9° 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



dustries. Little towns like Ypres, Ramscap- 
pelle, Fumes, Nieuport, and Dixmude, for 
centuries the homes of happy and thrifty 
people, possessing the quaintness and charm 
that attaches to the Flemish cities in which 
ancient architecture has withstood the test 
of time, lay in the tract of war and were 
ruthlessly blotted out. 

It became clear early in October that the 
German strategy contemplated a drive down 




How a modern battle 



This is a picture of the battle as viewed from a housetop 
in Soissons 



Dunkirk was the first objective of the Ger- 
mans. After it Calais. The activities of 
the British monitors, in the Channel, which 
could readily have been reenforced bv num- 
bers of light-draught vessels, made the ad- 
vance along the coast hazardous. Accord- 
ingly at Westende the invading columns 
turned inland. But at once they encount- 
ered the River Yser, with canals extending 
in all directions from it. Behind these nat- 
ural defences the Belgians, 
perhaps 50,000 of them, 
and the French had estab- 
lished themselves in force. 
Later a British corps, in- 
cluding several regiments 
of East Indians from La- 
hore, came to the aid of 
these forces. It had become 
apparent to General Joffre 
and Sir John French that in 
this water-logged corner of 
Europe the Germans in- 
tended to strike at their 
enemies with all the power 
of their marvelous morale, 
superb equipment, and 
overwhelming numbers. 

Five months of righting 
without cessation followed. 
A bleak, chill October 
passed into the bitterness of 
winter. The men who had 
long fought knee-deep in 
water now stood with freez- 
ing teet upon sheets of ice. 
Day by day news went out 
to the world of trivial suc- 
cesses or reverses. An ad- 
vance of ninety yards was 
worth chronicling in the 
Villages were taken and re- 



official reports. 



the coast of the Channel to Calais. About 

250,000 men, Belgian, French, and British, taken. In the same day's news the same town 

opposed the Germans on this part of the would be noted as occupied by both armies, 

line. The Belgians, about 50,000 strong be- which, paradoxical as it might seem, was true 

ing on thejsxtreme left, bore the shock of the as neither occupied more than a small part of 



conflict. The fighting raged for weeks with- 
out material advantage to either side. In- 
deed atter two years of the war the opposing 
lines through Flanders were practically iden- 
tical with those taken when the German ad- 
vance first reached Ostend. But nowhere 
and at no time in the history of the war has 
there been more savage fighting, nor have 
ever troops dared more or suffered more than 
those in the water-logged fields of Flanders. 



it, though destruction and death possessed it 
all. Not for years will the losses sustained by 
the armies struggling for the Yser be known 
— accurately they will never be known. For 
the first thirty days of fighting, however, 
the total losses of the Germans were esti- 
mated at 120,000 by one of their high officials. 
The French estimates were higher, while they 
put the losses of the Allies in the neighbor- 
hood of 75,000. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



9i 



The German troops engaged during Oc- 
tober and early November numbered about 
600,000 men, according to French authori- 
ties. They were commanded at different 
points in the line by the Crown Prince of 
Bavaria, General von Fabeck, General von 
Demling, and the Duke of Wurtemberg. 
Animated by high ambition they were still 
further stimulated to daring by proclama- 
tions declaring it the will of the Kaiser that 
all Belgian resistance be 
stamped out before Novem- 
ber 1st, in order that on the 
birthday of the Kaiser the 
announcement might be 
made to the world of the an- 
nexation of Belgium to the 
German Empire, the first 
spoil of war. 

At the outset this seemed 
an ambition easy of attain- 
ment. The Belgian army 
fleeing from Antwerp was 
utterly demoralized. The 
English armv moving north- 
ward from the Aisne was de- 
layed for lack of transporta- 
tion. On the coast and in 
Flanders the chief French 
force was made up of cav- 
alry, territorials and drafted 
men from the navy — all 
under General Foch, and 
not strong enough to inter- 
pose a sufficient defence to 
the . German assault. To 
the right of Foch, around 
Lille, was General Maud- 
kin, and beyond his division 
was that of General de 
Castelnau near Arras. 

As rapidly as possible the French concen- 
trated in the neighborhood of Dixmude, 
holding the railroad line, and protected by 
the river and canals in their front. Behind 
them the Belgians were rapidly reorganizing. 
The Germans, avoiding for the time a frontal 
attack, sought to get around the left flank of 
the Allies, menacing Dunkirk and Calais and 
cutting the British off from their base on the 
Channel. In this endeavor the antagonists 
fought in a flooded country, where trenches 
became ditches, and deep canals cut through 
the flooded fields lured on unsuspecting troops 
to watery graves. The savagery of the fight- 
ing exceeded anything known in war. At one 



point a ferryman's stone house, an object of 
attack alternately by both armies, was taken 
and retaken, until the fields awash around it 
were filled with floating bodies. Along the 
Yser, at Ypres and Ramscappelle, the armies 
were in such close contact that the fighting 
was much of the time hand-to-hand, and in 
the end neither force had gained any material 
advantage. 

All authorities agreed that the losses of the 




raining English 



Germans in this fighting far exceeded those of 
the Allies because of their stubborn adherence 
to the attack en masse. They charged in 
dense columns, eight abreast, offering a tar- 
get no artillerist could possibly miss. "In 
certain trenches 120 metres long," says a 
French official report, "there have been found 
more than 2,000 corpses. This in spite of 
the fact that we know the Germans, whenever 
it is possible for them to do so, remove their 
dead from the field of battle." 

As a result of three weeks' hard fighting 
along the Yser and about Ypres, the Belgian 
army was buttressed in its final hold upon its 
own land, and the desire of the Kaiser to an- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




An Eg 

nex Belgium was, for the moment at least, 
thwarted. Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne 
were saved for the Allies. The spirit of the 
Belgian troops was renewed, and that of the 
French and British greatly stimulated by the 
decided check to the German onrush. The 
Germans were not driven back, however. 
They dug themselves in, in Flanders, as they 
had done all across France, and the year 
closed without any indication of the ability 
of the Allies to drive them out. Neverthe- 
less the check was essentially an allied vic- 
tory. 

The territory over which the hostile armies 
were fighting so tenaciously and savagely was 
devastated as no land since we began to talk 
of "civilized warfare" has ever been. Dix- 
mude, Ypres, Ramscappelle — all beautiful 
towns — were reduced to ruins. The destruc- 
tion seems almost to have been wanton, the 
artillerists hurling their shells upon historic 
edifices apparently for the mere pleasure of 




The barber in the French trenches 



seeing them crumble. Of the 1 8,000 in- 
habitants of Ypres, virtually all were driven 
out — only the dead remained. The houses 
that were not destroyed by shell-fire were 
pillaged and burned by the German invaders. 
A correspondent visiting the city after the 
bombardment had continued a month de- 
scribes its appearance thus: 

"For a distance of three hundred yards 
German shells had ploughed their way through 
parallel streets, forming a new ruthless avenue 
through the town of Ypres. 

"The most terrible sight of all lay farther on. 
The L~J:hedral of Saint Martin, a magnificent 
edifice of the Fifteenth Century, containing 
the tomb of Jansenius, is nothing but a mass 
of ruins. It was dusk when we reached it. 
"Climbing a heap of stone debris, dis- 
colored by the fumes released from shells, I 
saw in the gloom of the ruined aisle a red glow 
which for a moment I took to be that of an 
altar light. Clambering farther into the ruins 
of the church I found this to be nothing but 
the still-smouldering embers of the cathedral. 
"For while we were 
still there the Germans, 
heaven knows for what 
reason, were busily en- 
gaged in pouring in- 
cendiary bombs upon 
the already ruined city. 
Next door to the cathed- 
ral stood the magnifi- 
cent Market Hall of 
Ypres. It is now liter- 
ally a heap of rums. I 
would wish the people 
of half a dozen cities in 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



93 




Some American members ot the French Foreign Legion 



the textile district could imagine they pos- 
sessed markets of the artistic beauty of West- 
minster Abbey, together with their own 
thriving trade, and imagine the scene of utter 
desolation and ruin which I have endeavored 
to describe there at Ypres. 

"The town has not only been bombarded 
systematically with a view to destruction 
rather than military advantage, but it has 
also been sacked with all the thoroughness of 
the German system. It was not only a shell; 
it is a burst shell. Its very streets have been 
destroyed. In the main road from Ypres one 
of those 'Jack Johnson's,' which the French 
troops, with the same light-heartedness which 
characterizes our own have given the name of 
marmites, or soup kettles, has made a hole big 
enough to contain a London motorbus. 
These huge pits yawn in every road along the 
front." 

A British official report, setting aside for 
the moment cold officialism, described strik- 
ingly the conditions of life in the trenches 
along the Yser: 

"The condition of the 
trenches became 

wretched beyond de- 
scription. From having 
to sit or stand in a mix- 
ture of straw and liquid 
mud, the men had to 
contend with half-frozen 
slush. 'It is an ill wind, 
however,' and one good 
point about the wet 
weather is that it made 
the ground so soft that 
the enemy's howitzer 
shells sink some depth 



before thev detonate, and expend a great 
part of their energy in an upward direction, 
throwing the mud about. 

"Nevertheless the wet and cold have added 
greatly to the hardships of the troops in the 
trenches, and the problem how to enable 
them to keep their feet reasonably dry and 
warm now is engaging serious attention. 

"At one place, owing to the kindness of the 
proprietor, certain works recently were placed 
at our disposal as a wholesale bathhouse, 
lavatory, and repair shop. In the works are a 
number of vats large enough to contain 
several men at one time. They serve most 
excellently for the provision of hot baths for 
the men on relief from the trenches. 

"While the men are enjoying their bath, 
their clothes are taken away, their under- 
clothing washed or burned, and replaced by a 
new set. At the same time their uniforms 
are fumigated, cleaned and re- 
/rv paired and buttons sewed on. The 
repairs are done by a band of wo- 
men who are employed for the pur- 




SncKli 



airmen from locating then 



>vered with sod to keep enemy 



94 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



pose. By this installation some 1,500 men 
are catered to in every way." 

Digging in, shivering day and night in the 
trenches, killing now and then with a rifle 
shot some other poor fellow quite as weary of 
the war as his killer, dodging bombs or throw- 
ing them, starving, hopelessly and endlessly 
pursuing vermin, going unwashed and often 
unfed — so both Allies and Germans spent the 
winter months with practically no advantage 



through the mountains that the Germans had 
taken early in the war were slowly regained. 
Instead of the German capture of Verdun, 
which had so long been expected, the news 
came daily of French successes near St. 
Mihiel and St. Die. The former of these 
positions, marking the extreme German ad- 
vance into France along that line, was the 
scene of constant fighting. Could the French 
but break through at that point, they would 




Three blind soldiers at St. Dunctan's Villa, a magnificent London property given by Otto Kahn, an American banker, for a home 

for blinded soldiers and sailors 



won or lost. December passed; 1914 gave 
way to 191 5; and still the Germans clung to 
the soil they had won, still the French and 
English barred their way to any further con- 
quest. But the Allies were steadily growing 
stronger while the needs of Von Hindenberg 
in the west, where the fighting was again 
savage, compelled the sending thither of 
heavy reinforcements from France and Bel- 
gium. 

As a result of this the French pushed their 
way ahead in Alsace, and on the right of their 
line became the aggressors. The roads 



cut the German communications with Metz, 
and put the entire Army of the Crown Prince 
in jeopardy. But week after week the pound- 
ing went on without serious result. The line 
of the Meuse still held practically as the limit 
of the Germans' advance though at one to two 
points they had indeed crossed the river. 

Verdun alone among the fortresses of 
France gave that example of stubborn de- 
fiance and protracted resistance which had 
been expected of the forts at Lille and Namur. 
And it indeed was protected rather than a 
protector, for, seeing the impotence of their 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



95 




Louvain, city of learning, the Oxford of Belgium, wrecked by war 




Copyright by International News Serw. 

Louvain laid waste. Curiously enough, statues in the streets were seldom injured 



9 6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



forts before the heavy new German artillery, 
the French determined to defend Verdun from 
without rather than within, and threw for- 
ward their trenches with infantry defenders 
to such a point that the Germans were never 
near enough to the fortress to bring their 
heaviest artillery to bear. The lines of 
hostile trenches approached each other so 
closely that the soldiers shouted messages 
across the field, and patching up temporary 
truces went amicably together down to the 



the towns within twenty miles of the frontier, 
setting up their own governments and courts. 
They sav that when the first crier opened the 
court "in the name of the French people," old 
men who had been annexed with the country 
by Germany in 1S71 burst into tears and the 
young people ran about the streets waving the 
tricolor. 

By the end of the year the French had 
possession of the whole Vosges region, the 
valley of the Thur, and many strategic 




Indian soldiers on their way to France 



neighboring stream to bathe — putting ofF, it 
would appear, their enmities with the uni- 
forms that symbolized them. 

While holding the invaders back from their 
territory the French were making inroads — 
small, indeed, but to the French mind im- 
mensely gratifying — upon German lands. 
For Alsace, which had been lost in 1871, into 
which at the opening of this war the soldiers 
of the Republic had exultantly streamed only 
to be driven out again, was now coming once 
more into their possession. From Belfort, 
the most southeasterly of the French fort- 
resses, they poured into Alsace, occupying 



mountain passes. Their material gains were 
little. Miihlhausen and Altkirch were still 
holding out against them. But their po- 
sitions were such as to promise an active ad- 
vance in the spring when the heavy snows 
that blocked the mountain roads should have 
melted away. Yet their successes in that 
region were no offset to the tremendous ad- 
vantage held by the forces of the Kaiser in the 
west. 

For, checked in his advance, forced to a 
standstill as he was, the Kaiser still held at 
the end of 1914 the position in the west 
practically of a conqueror. All Belgium, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




home destroyed 



.> 




Homeless in the path of the invaders 



Copyright by iDternatmnal News Service 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




So thoroughly 
were his troops 
entrenched in 
France and 
Belgium, it 
seemed nothing 
could drive 
themout. "The 
march upon 
Berlin," said a 
German gen- 
eral in answer 
to a French 
boast, "would 
take years and 
cost 5,000 men 
a day." Prob- 
ably this was 
no over-state- 
me n t. The 
German posi- 
tions in Bel- 
gium, at least, 
seemed almost 
impregnable, 
while the past 
had been for 
the German 
Emperor one 



The ruined church of Sr. Pierre, Louvain, from the rea 

save perhaps 35 square miles in its extreme 
corner, was his. Belgian cities like Brussels, 
Antwerp, and Ghent were ruled by his officers, 
and paid tribute to his treasury." His armies 
held about 8,000 square miles of French 
territory, inhabited b V 2,500,000 Frenchmen 
Save for a little corner of East Prussia, all the 
fighting was on the soil of his enemies; his 
own land knew little of the horrors of war. 



General JofFre, directing the French force 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



long record of 
victory. 

Yet the vic- 
tories were of a 
sort that, as the 
event shows 
did not hasten 
the end of the 
war but rather 
prolonged it. 
The callous and 
cynical indiffer- 
ence to neutral 
rights mani- 
fested in the in- 
vasion of Bel- 
gium not only 
brought Eng- 
land into the 
Held as a foe to 
Germany but 
more than a 
year later was 
a powerful 
argument for 
the entrance of 
Italy upon the 
struggle as one 
of the Allies. 





General von Buelow of the German army 



The work of a shell in the Malines Cathedral 



The atrocities perpetrated in Belgium were 
awakening an ever louder chorus of indigna- 
tion from neutral nations. The presence of a 
foe on their soil aroused the French to such 
prodigies of valor and sacrifice as awakened 
the admiration of the world. In the end it 
seems likely that io^will be looked upon as 
the time when the glory of the Kaiser reached 
its culmination, for thereafter the tide of suc- 
cess no longer carried him smoothly to victory. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Strassburg, next to Met/, the most important city in Alsace-Lortaine, toward which the French forces first marched 



CHRONOLOGY OF PERIOD TREATED IN CHAPTER III 



September 15. Beginning the Battle of the Aisne, extending 
from Noyon to Verdun. 

September 17. French advancing in \\ oevre. 

September 18. Allies, left and right wings advance. Heavy 
fighting at Rheims. Beginning of the German bombard 
ment of Cathedral of Notre Dame in that city. 

September 20. Heavy fighting at Rheims and Soissons. 

September 21. Allies gain between Rheims and the Argonne. 

September 23. Germans bombard Verdun. (The German 
attack upon this famous fortress will be treated in a chapter 
by itself. Verdun was first bombarded September 4, 1914. 
On August 1, 1916, it still defied its assailants, although for 
six months prior to that date the most strenuous efforts ot 
the German army, led by the Crown Prince, had been put 
forth for its subjection.) 

September 26. Germans take Fort des Romaines and cross 
the Meuse. 

September 29. Germans take Malines and shell the outer forts 
of Antwerp. The fighting on the Aisne still continues. 

October I. Belgians repulse German attacks on Antwerp 
forts. 



October 2. Allies' northern advance in the west checked al 
Arras. 

October 4. Germans capture three forts defending Antwerp. 
Allied relief expedition reaches Antwerp, 

October6. Heavy fighting along the Oice, Soisscr.3, Lille, 
and Ypres. 

October 8. Bombardment of Antwerp. 

October 10. Antwerp surrenders. Belgian army escapes. 

October II. British and Belgian forces from Antwerp make 
a stand at Ostend. 

October 12. Belgians occupy Ghent and press on toward 
Ostend and Bruges. Lille taken by Germans. 

October 14. Belgians abandon Ostend and join Allies in the 
field. Allies reoccupy Ypres. 

October 16. Germans occupy Ostend. Their battleline reach- 
ing the sea for the first time. Their attempt to take Dun- 
kirk checked. 

October 18. Fighting along Ypres canal and River Yser. 
The beginning of a deadlock lasting fully eighteen months 
in the water-logged section of northwestern France and 
southwestern Belgium. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




C H A P T E R I V 



THE WAR IN THE EAST SWIFT INVASION OF EAST PRUSSIA BY RUSSIANS — THEIR 

DEFEAT AT TANNENBERG — RUSSIANS ADVANCE INTO GAI.ICIA — CHARACTER OF 

AUSTRIAN ARMIES THEIR FAILURE BEFORE RUSSIAN ATTACK. GERMANS COME 

TO THE RESCUE — TIDE OF BATTLE BEFORE CRACOW — WARSAW AND PRZEMYSL 




ALL-COMPELL- 
ING and spectacu 
lar was the march 
of the German 
hosts through Bel- 
gium and Fiance to 
the very gates of 
Paris that during 
the first six weeks 
of the war atten- 
tion was little di- 
rected to its pro- 
gress in eastern 
Europe — on the 
tm borders cf Aus- 

tM'lS fs. jH .im;1 Servia 

^P^^ B& where the confla- 

gration started, 
and on the Rus- 
so-German fron- 

from the very 
first Germany's point of greatest weakness. 
The world knew, of course, that beyond the 
little-known banks of the Vistula, the Dneister, 
and the San the great Russian monster was 
slowly rolling together its masses of armed 
men readyto overwhelm Germanyand Austria 
by sheer weight of numbers. But the world 
knew not the new Russia. It considered the 
boundless steppes, the widely separated vil- 
lages, the single-track railroads, the highways 
which a rain turns into a bottomless bog, and it 
dismissed the thought ot Russia becoming a 
factor in the war for at least two months after 
its declaration. This was obviously the antici- 
pation of Emperor William, and was the second 
of the two illusions which led him to embark 
upon the struggle with a supreme confidence 
which the event ill-justified — the first being 
his misconception of the isolated position of 
Germany among the nations of Europe. 



Among military experts generally August 
26th was fixed as about the earliest date upon 
which the Russians could complete mobiliza- 
tion and take the offensive. But fully two 
weeks earlier the Czar's legions were in 
motion. The swiftness of the Russian ad- 
vance found Germany most inadequately pre- 
pared. Only three army corps, less than 
150,000 men in all, were available for defence 
in East Prussia when the Russians first struck 
at Gumbinnen on August 20, 1914. So thor- 
oughly had the Kaiser stripped his eastern 
frontier of troops in order the more certainly 
to overwhelm Belgium and fiance that the 
Russians, with more than 750,000 men, at 
first seemed able to sweep all before them. 
In a week the greater part of East Prussia 
was in their possession and Konigsberg, a 
fortified town of 250,000 inhabitants on the 
Baltic, and the fortresses of Thorn and 
Gradenz, were besieged. The country is a 
difficult one for military operations, being 
marshy and plentifully interspersed with 
small lakes. The progress of the Russian 
armies, too, was checked at the frontier by a 
change in the gauge of the railroads, Russia 
using a wider gauge. 

Examination of the map will show the na- 
ture of the strategic problem with which the 
Russians had to grapple. That part of the 
Czar's domain known as Russian Poland 
projects to the westward between East 
Prussia and Austria-Hungary until it reaches 
a point only 140 miles from Berlin as the 
crow flies. From the first Berlin was the 
Czar's objective though the topography of 
the country in which his armies operated 
made it equally easy for him until late in his 
campaign to strike at either Vienna or Berlin, 
while the magnitude of his armies made it 
perfectly possible for him to menace both 
capitals. But by agreement with the Allies 



104 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



he was to threaten Berlin from the very 
beginning of his operations in order that the 
Kaiser might be compelled to recall some of 
his troops from France to protect his own 
capital. 

Though it would appear that the westward 
thrust of Russian Poland made it simple for 
the Russians to begin their invasion of Ger- 
many within 140 miles of Berlin, the princi- 
ples of safe strategy would not permit this. 
The frontiers of East Prussia to the north and 



forces operating before Paris, and dispatch 
them to the danger point in the east. That 
was the moment when Von Kluck halted his 
hitherto resistless march upon the French 
capital. It was the critical incident which 
showed that the delay in Belgium and the 
unexpected swiftness of Russian mobilization 
had defeated the Kaiser's plan of first crush- 
ing France and then turning upon the Rus- 
sian Bear. The moment when the diversion 
of German troops from France to East Prus- 




Polish women work for the relief of refugees. Poland has its relief problem no less than Belgium, and the hardships endured 
by the citizens of its destroyed towns are almost beyond description 



Galicia to the south were lined with forts 
protecting hostile Germans and Austrians who 
would close in behind the Russian troops, 
should they take the most direct route to 
Berlin, and cut them ofT from their base. 
Russia struck first at East Prussia, where 
there were only three German army corps, or 
about 150,000 men to meet. For the over- 
whelming force which the Czar put into the 
field this was hardly a stumbling block. 
Despite the gallant resistance, despite, too, 
the difficult nature of the campaign the in- 
vaders moved resistlessly onward until the 
menacing progress of their armies forced the 
Kaiser to recall two army corps from the 



sia was compelled was as fraught with im- 
portance to the history of Europe, as was to 
the history of the United States the appear- 
ance of the Monitor in Hampton Roads on 
the very day when, but for it, the Merrimac 
would have completed the destruction of the 
Union fleet and put to sea to lay the cities 
of the North under tribute. 

Under command of General Rennenkampf, 
a dashing cavalryman who brought back 
from the war in Manchuria the title of "the 
Russian Tiger," it took the Russians scarcely 
a week to sweep so far into German Poland 
that the non-military world began to think 
that Germany's downfall was destined to 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



105 




The Russians were long halted on the line shown in Cjalieia. Cracow and Przemysl were both relieved by the Germans 

the verge ot surrender 



*Vima 




S I A 

Brest- UtovsK 



•?owno 



B O HEM I A 




Przemysl 




rpalA - H tj-^y 



Budapest 



v 



G 



«aKl'i 



**£Sf£f 



General map of the Eastern Theatre of War, the shaded portion showing extent of the Russian advance. During the period 
covered by Chapter IV the Russians menaced Kijnigsberg, were beaten at Allenstein, and in Galicia progressed as far as Przemysl, 
while their cavalry passed beyond the Carpathians. The Germans pushed east in Poland almost to Warsaw 



io6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



107 



come from that 
quarter. Look- 
ing back upon 
that moment, so 
critical to Ger- 
many in every 
phase of her 
many-sided cam- 
paign, one can 
but admire the 
magnificent de- 
termination with 
which the Kaiser 
and his General 
Staff closed their 
ears to the cries 
for help from 
East Prussia and 
stubbornly ad- 
hered to their 
purpose to crush 
France before 
turning to meet 
the Russian 
peril. Konigs- 
berg, Thorn, and 
Grandenz, all 
fortresses of the 
first class, were 
invested before 
the German 
force under Gen- 
eral Hindenburg 
was sufficiently 
reenforced to 
make headway 
against the in- 
vaders. To se- 
cure these reen- 
forcements, Bel- 
gian towns that 

had been taken at the sacrifice of thousands 
of German lives were stripped of their gar- 
risons, and the line of communication of the 
army before Paris, with its base at Aix-la- 
Chapelle, was left so scantily guarded as to 
tempt the Belgian army to new activity. 

But when the Germans did turn their 
attention to the Russians in eastern Prussia 
the work they did was sharp and effective. 
In all, General Hindenburg had about 
350,000 troops to oppose to a vastly superior 
Russian force, but within a week he had 
pushed them back from the fortified positions 
they menaced, forced them to fight the 
pitched battle of Tannenburg, and defeated 




a haystack hv Cossack soldiers 



them decisively, capturing nearly So,ooo men. 

A difficult and treacherous country and a 
German general who from youth had studied 
the characteristics of this country and knew 
instantly and precisely how best to apply 
them to the needs of any military situation 
that might confront him, were the two factors 
which contributed chiefly to the Russian dis- 
aster in East Prussia. 

The district in which occurred the battle, 
which the Germans call Tannenberg and the 
Russians Allenstein, is sparsely inhabited with 
few railroads and bad highways. It is part of 
what is known as the Masurian Lake district, 
a region of sandv hillocks, scant patches of 



io8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Russian commissary officers determining the portions of food for the soldiers 



forest, and innumerable bodies of water rang- 
ing from small pools to considerable lakes. 
Much of the land that seems to the eye solid 
is in fact a bog which refuses to support the 
weight of man. The lakes are doubly 
treacherous because across some extend fords 
of sand or gravel capable of carrying the 
heaviest burdens, while the bottom of a 
sheet of water only a few hundred yards away 
will be of illimitable mud. In places ridges of 
sand or clav extend into the lake and come to 



a sudden end, leaving any 
body of troops that think 
to use them as fords, en- 
trapped in deep water or 
deeper mud. By ages of 
labor the Germans had 
laid out narrow turnpikes 
between the lakes, but 
these were insufficient for 
the passage of any large 
army and out of touch 
with each other. There 
was no possibility of de- 
ploying troops between 
the roads. If the road 
was so crowded that the 
marching men spread out 
into the adjacent fields, 
they would find them- 
selves mired. It was al- 
most impossible to judge by the appearance 
of the surface whether the ground might be 
trusted to bear any considerable burden. 

The physical menace of this treacherous 
territory would have been as great to either 
side had it not been that the Germans were 
commanded by a man who had foreseen years 
before the possibility of a great battle in this 
territory and prepared himself to utilize to the 
fullest extent all its treacherous qualities 
against any possible enemy. General von 




Copyright by International Ni 

Russian machine guns, captured by the Germans and exhibited in Berlin 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



109 



Hindenburg was born in 
this section of eastern 
Prussia, served all his life 
in the army, and years be- 
fore asked to] be assigned 
to duty in this section the 
very nature of which 
might well repel any sol- 
dier. His furloughs were 
spent among the lakes, 
and he knew intimately 
the nature of the bottom 
of each, the character of 
its ford, and the degree of 
reliancethat might beput 
upon the stability of the 
strips of soil separating 
them. "The Old Man 
of the Lakes" his soldiers 
came to call him. 

With his knowledge of the nature of the 
battlefield to which he was inviting the Rus- 
sian invaders, Hindenburg calmly awaited 
their attack. He was confident that once they 
were enmeshed in that water-logged region his 
superior knowledge of the territory would 
make amends for any possible shortage in his 
men. The first clash between the two forces 
had resulted in Russian victory. With two 
armies, numbering 'in the neighborhood of 
200,000 men, they had advanced into East 




t the Russians did to a bridge at Przemysl 



Prussia both from the east and from the 
south. They encountered the Germans first 
at Gumbinnen, defeated them there and drove 
them back upon Konigsberg. A few days 
later another Russian army, again enjoying 
the superiority in numbers, overwhelmed a 
German army corps near Erankenau. By the 
25th of August a vast crowd of refugees was 
fleeing to the westward and it seemed that 
nothing would block the Russian advance. 
But by this time Von Hindenburg had secured 




The ghastly task of clearing a battlefield 



V li^llt l>Y I'll'lrru I A 



no 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



what he believed to be a sufficient force and 
was ready to make a stand. • His troops were 
drawn in part from the German line as far 
away as Flanders. In all he had probably 
200,000 men or nearly as man}- as the Rus- 
sian, General Samsonoft, who opposed him. 
Within forty-eight hours after the opening of 
battle he had dealt the Russians such blows 
that nothing was left for them but retreat. 



an impassable bog in which horses, men, an 
guns slowly sank from sight. Thev essay 
the passage of the lakes by fords which led 
them as far as the middle of the waters and 
then dropped them off to destruction. There 
was no possibility of rearguard fighting that 
would cover such a retreat. There was no 
chance of cooperation between the various 
bodies of the army which rapidly became de- 



:i 







A German masked batte 



Then followed the greatest disaster of the 
early days of the war to the allied forces. 
For Hindenburg had so utilized his knowledge 
of the Masurian Lake country that he had 
penned the unfortunate Russians in that be- 
wildering and fatal maze of marshes, creeks, 
lakes, and quagmires. He was well provided 
with field artillery, and the heavy fire of his 
guns made the orderly retreat of the Russians 
along the narrow road impossible. They 
broke and took to the fields, only to find that 
what appeared to be solid ground was in fact 



moralized. Regiments and brigades were 
swallowed up, and the toll of death taken by 
Hindenburg's merciless artillery was moderate 
in comparison to the numbers of men swal- 
lowed up in the mud and water. The ac- 
counts of eye-witnesses are ghastly in their 
descriptions of the cries of whole battalions of 
men rising out of the night from some dark 
quicksand in which they were being slowly en- 
gulfed. 

The portion of the Russian army that was 
caught in this colossal trap was fairly an- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Civilians preparing to leave Warsaw as the Germans approach 




German troops, attend service in the garrison church at Przemysl 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



"3 




Russian infantry and civilians evacuating Przemvsl 



nihilated. More than 80,000 men were cap- 
tured by the Germans, and it is estimated that 
almost as many more lost their lives. The 
fragments of the army recoiled upon Russia 
and it was long before they recuperated 
sufficiently to take up again the task of in- 
vading Prussia. Numbers of the prisoners 
and hundreds of the captured cannon were 
sent to Berlin where they arrived in season to 
be paraded in triumph before the people on 
the anniversary of Sedan. It was at least 
some compensation to the German nation for 
the failure of the army in the west to enter 



Paris on that day. Hindenburg became the 
idol of the German people, and though in 
later actions his good fortune did not adhere 
to him, he never lost the heroic position he at- 
tained by the battle of the Masurian Lakes. 

By the 1st of October the whole of eastern 
Prussia had been cleared of Russians, the 
Germans having concentrated there their 
main endeavors in the east. Besides freeing 
their own territory of the enemy, they were 
trying to divert the Russians from the inva- 
sion of Galicia to the south, which by this 
time was shown to be the main feature of the 




Russian prisoners after being bathed, shaved, and fumigated by the German sanitation corps 



ii4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Russian campaign. But from this the Rus- 
sians refused to be diverted. Rennenkampf, 
having lost the battle of Allenstein, and re- 
treated as far as the banks of the Neiman, 
made a brief stand there, then attacked in his 
turn, driving the Germans back to their own 
frontier. There we may 
leave him for a time, and 
turn our attention to the 
main Russian campaign 
in Austrian Poland or 
Galicia. 

If the reader will con- 
sult again the general 
map of the scene of 
the war in the east he 
will see that just south 
of that part of Russian 
Poland which juts out 
into German territory 
lies the Austrian pro- 
vince of Galicia. If nat- 
ural boundaries formed 
in fact the boundaries 
of states in Europe, 
Galicia would belong to 
Russia, and the frontier 
be pushed back to the 
south where the line of 
the Carpathian Moun- 
tains rears a natural 
barrier between the two 
countries. International 
politics, however, made 
Galicia Austrian nearly 
forty years ago, and as 
nature had left it peculi- 
arly exposed to Russian 
invasion, it became to 
the war in the east what 
Belgium was in the west 
— thegreatfield ofbattle 
of the warring nations. 

Austria was in no way 
fitted to cope with Rus- 
sia in the field. An in- 
tensely military nation, 

if the tone of her society in time of peace 
is at all representative, she has had a more 
inglorious record of defeats and unsuc- 
cessful wars than any power of Europe. 
The nominal war strength of her armies, 
1,360,000 with a maximum strength of 
4,320,000, is far more impressive than their 
history. The last time Austria-Hungary ap- 
peared in panoply of war — except in petty 



Balkan quarrels — was in 1866 when her 
forces were decisively beaten at Koniggratz 
by the Prussians, their allies in the war of 
1914. 

After having lighted the fuse that fired the 
war magazine of all Europe, Austria settled 




General Popoff watching the battle of Prazasnvsz. During this fight a single division 
of the Russian army repulsed a superior force of Germans and took 10,000 prisoners. It 
was here that Hindenburg's "lightning drive" into Russian Poland was stopped 

back to an inglorious career of futile self- 
defense. Her armies did indeed bombard 
Belgrade and begin a brief invasion of Servia, 
but were speedily called back to meet the 
Russian menace to the north. A brief rush 
into the territory of the Bear carried the 
Austrian standards as far as Lublin in Rus- 
sian Poland. There they stopped. The Rus- 
sian army, estimated at a million strong, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



US 





Danzig — a strong maritime f 



jfifc 



ft bank of the western arm of the Vistula 




The Rathaus in Breslau 



n6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




German Taube brought to earth by Cossacks in Russian Poland 



struck in its turn. Remorselessly, over- 
whelmingly, rolling resistlessly onward like a 
tidal wave, it bore back the Austrians by 
sheer power of weight. The Russian left 
rested in the passes of the Carpathians, its 
right reached as far into Russian Poland as 
Lublin. Two rivers barred the progress of 
this army, the Bug and the San, but despite 
the savage resistance of the Austrian artillery 
■ — the most efficient branch of that country's 
military force — both were passed. The 
country was a difficult one in which to operate. 
The rivers were either bordered by wide 
marshes or flowed tumultuously through 



deep, rocky canyons. The roads in the main 
were wretched, and had the Russians or 
Austrians possessed the great guns which the 
Germans dragged so rapidly along the level 
highways of Belgium, they could have made 
no use of them. 

There were, however, no such ponderous 
fortresses to stay the Russian progress in 
Galicia as confronted the Germans in Bel- 
gium. Lemberg, a place of moderate 
strength, was taken September 1st, the vic- 
tory being accompanied by the capture of an 
enormous body of Austrians, estimated at the 
time at <So,ooo, and the killing or wounding of 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




half as many 
more. To Rus- 
sia the victory 
was an offset to 
the disaster of 
Ta n n enberg 
which befell the 
sa me wee k . 
Practically as 
many men were 
lost to Austria 
here as were 
lost to Russia 
in the battle of 
the Masurian 
Lakes. 

This victory 
had its prompt 

effect on the German lines before Paris. It 
was only too clear that with Lemberg fallen 
and the Russians outnumbering the Austrians 
nearly three to one, there was a new danger 
threatening Berlin from the south and east. 
At the beginning of the war Austria, thinking 
like her ally that Russia was too big to move 
swiftly, had lent two army corps to Germany. 
These were hastily recalled. With them 
came five German corps, snatched from Von 
Kluck and Von Buelow while the Battle of the 
Marne was in progress. The new- 
comers set themselves stubbornly jgs^^i 
across the Russian path 
and there fol- 
lowed weeks of 
fighting as des- 
perate as that 
in the fair fields 
of France 
and Be 
gium. 



r — one of the Austrian dead 

The objective points were Przemysl and 
Cracow, and in the struggle for these fortified 
positions a host of battles were fought in fields 
that history will scarce record, though the 
numbers engaged exceeded those at Waterloo 
or Sedan. 

Despite the overpowering numbers of the 
Russians, however, the operations of Septem- 
ber, 1914, showed them quite incapable of 
overcoming the superior discipline and strate- 
gic skill of the Germans. The Austrians, in- 
deed, they fought to a standstill. 
After the victory of Lemberg the 
Russian advance toward Cracow 
was steady, opposed by the Aus- 
trian forces in battles 
like that at Dukla, but 
never long halted. 
Przemysl, an important 
stronghold with an un- 
pronounceable name, 
which long troubled 
ir disputants on war 
strategy, was invested 




Burning the bodies of the dead in Russia. Cremation is frequ 
of bodies must be disposed of in a short time. This method of disposal of the dead 
deeply frozen, making the digging of graves a difficult and tedious task 



burial when vast numbers 
ed to when the ground is 



n8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



and left for later attack as the Russian ad- 
vance pressed on. The invaders were greatly 
helped by the fact that they were operating 
in a country the Polish inhabitants of which, 
though subjects of Austria-Hungary, were 
nevertheless covertly friendly to the Russians. 




A P « 



Poland after it had been shelled by the Ge 



They showed their friendship by eagerly giv- 
ing information as to the movements of the 
Austrian troops, and many curious devices 
were employed to convey the information. 
A coal fire making black smoke signified one 
thing; a wood fire making whitish smoke, an- 
other. In the village streets the position of 
the images on the Eikons, or shrines, told one 
story to the invading Cossacks, while a seem- 
ingly innocent display of household utensils, 
or linen hanging from a window, would put the 



pursuing cavalry on the track of the retreat- 
ing enemy. 

By the end of September the Austrians 
had successfully withdrawn their troops 
which had invaded Russian Poland, and 
which the world had been informed, falsely, 
had been cut off" and cap- 
tured by the Russians. 
Forming a junction with 
the right wing of the Aus- 
trian army, these troops 
took up a line with theii 
left resting on the Vistula 
River, and their right rest- 
ing on Przemysl, whose 
ring of forty-one forts con- 
nected by railroads and 
garrisoned by 60,000 men 
long held the invaders in 
check. Jaroslav, another 
fortress of less power, also 
proved a serious stumbl- 
ing-block in the Russians' 
path. Beyond it, and ex- 
tending to Cracow, the 
force opposed to the Rus- 
sianswas mainly composed 
of Germans, and against 
them the forces of the Czar 
made but little headway. 
September ended with 
these two armies beating 
against each other with but 
little decisive result. The 
ceaseless attrition of the 
Russian hordes, however, 
had told heavily upon the 
Austrians, who are esti- 
mated to have lost during 
the month's campaigning 
300,000 men and 1,000 
guns, or nearly a third of 
their entire force. During 
this period, too, the Serbs 
and Montenegrins had 
been busy on the southern borders of Austria, 
compelling that nation to keep at least 
500,000 men there. 

Essentially the Russian army at this time 
might be taken as a single line of battle, 
numbering about 2,300,000 men, extending 
from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathians. In 
East Prussia it was confronted by a German 
army of 1,000,000 men. In Russian Poland 
the Germans had about 500,000, and, though 
outnumbered by the Russians, held them 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



119 




Clash between advance guards. One of trie hundreds of small skirmishes in which many lives are lost 

advantage being gained. A detachment of Germans pushing into Russian territory is met by a patrol 



long in check on their own soil. In the south 
the Germans and Austrians together had 
perhaps 1,000,000 more. 

At the beginning of the month of Septem- 
ber it appeared that the Russian advance was 
irresistible. German troops were withdrawn 



from Belgium and France and rushed to the 
east. The advance on Paris was checked. 
The long struggle along the banks of the 
Somme and the Aisne dragged its slow length 
along, and the world thought that the 
Russian Bear had awakened in time to balk 




ONE OF THE FORTS AT PRZEMYSL Al 




(* BOMBARDMENT BY KRUPP HOWITZERS 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



123 



Germany of her French prey and transfer 
the scene of the struggle to German soil. 
But the world was deceived'. That mar- 
velous fighting machine the Kaiser and his 
General Staff had so patiently builded 
proved equal to this new emergency, and 
the Russians were roughly checked before 
they had been able to make more than 
a slight inroad on the soil of the Fatherland. 



and abandoned their advance to the south of 
the Carpathians. The world wondered at 
this retreat in the face of continuous victory, 
but it was learned in time that the Russian 
supplies of munitions of war had been ex- 
hausted. It was months before the armies of 
the Czar were suitably equipped to resume 
the offensive. Mean time the Germans pushed 
into Russian Poland and soon it was War- 




Indeed the sudden check to the Russians, 
and the counter-attack delivered by the Ger- 
mans in the first half of October were little 
less remarkable as military achievements 
than the rush of Von Kluck's army upon 
Paris in August. The world had settled 
down to see the Russian Bear stride into Ger- 
many, crushing down all opposition. Berlin 
itself, despite messages of encouragement and 
reassurance from the Kaiser, began to show 
signs of unrest and approaching panic. But 
scarcely had the real fighting force of Ger- 
many come into contact with the Russian 
advance when all was checked. The invad- 
ers receded from Cracow and from Przemysl, 



saw, a Russian capital, instead of Cracow, the 
Austrian stronghold, that was endangered. 

After the German successes in the Masurian 
Lake region Von Hindenburg began that in- 
vasion of Russian Poland which, with vary- 
ing fortunes but with the general trend of 
success on the German side, was still in 
progress when the first six months of the 
war closed, February I, 191 5 . 

Warsaw was the objective, and for these 
six months was the point upon which con- 
verged all the German lines of attack. These 
lines came from the north up the Vistula, 
from the south down the Vistula, and directly 
from the west with Breslau for the German 



124 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



125 




Russian troops in the trenches, waiting for a German attack 



base. The first army was commanded by 
General von Hindenburg in person, the sec- 
ond by General Dankl of the Austrian army, 
and the third by the Crown Prince of Ba- 
varia. The concerted movement was begun 
October 4th, and the forces then engaged 
numbered on the German side about 400,000 
with about 200,000 Austrians. They were 
heavily outnumbered by the Russians under 
the Grand Duke Nicholas, but nevertheless 



pressed to the very suburbs of Warsaw with- 
out serious check in the first week of the 
fighting. Here their path was blocked by 
not less than a million Russians, who held 
the trenches in the German front while their 
great numbers enabled them to flank the 
invaders with both cavalry and infantry. 
Before this overwhelming force the invaders 
retreated, and by the end of the month were 
virtually expelled from Russian soil, 



126 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



127 




But to accomplish this Russia had been com- 
pelled to recall in part her armies from Galicia 
and the Carpathians. The siege of Przemysl 
was raised, to be renewed later, the troops 
of the Czar were withdrawn from Jaroslav, 
and Hungary was freed from their presence. 
These sacrifices had been compelled by the 
menace of Von Hindenburg's westward drive. 

With his retreat it appeared that Russia 
would retake her lost ground. Again Rus- 
sian troops flowed over into East Prussia and 
Galicia. By the middle of November Przem- 
ysl was again invested, the Cossacks were in 
the passes of the Carpathians, and the Czar's 
guns pounded at the gates of Cracow. Be- 
fore November was half ended the Russians, 
save for their heavy and irreparable losses at 
Tannenberg, had regained the advantage 
they had lost. 

But it was again only the ebb of the Ger- 
man tide. Once more it turned to the flood 
and flowed back across the territory. End- 
ing their retreat about the 
middle of November, the 
General Staff" hurriedly 
concentrated their eastern 
armies in the neighborhood 
of Thorn and again turned 
their faces toward Warsaw. 
Their advance menaced Rus- 
sian communications and did 
in fact cut the railroad lines 
which tied the chief Russian 
army to Warsaw. But the 
movement had its perils. As 
theGermans had cut the Rus- 
sian communications, so the 



Russian armies in Galicia and 
in East Prussia could close in 
behind the audacious invaders 
and cut them off. This was 
precisely what they did, and, 
beginning November 15th, ten 
days of continuous fighting 
ended in Russian victory. The 
newspaper reports from Petro- 
grad were delirious with claims 
of victory, and even Berlin 
admitted disaster. Warsaw 
had been saved after the Kai- 
ser's troops had come within 
sound of its bells. Von Hin- 
denburg was reported, falsely, 
mes f.j. Ardubaid a prisoner. At Lodz and at 

Mlwa the Germans were decis- 
ively beaten. East Prussia 
was still occupied by the Russians in force, 
and in Galicia the Czar's successes were daily 
augmenting, and the Austrian armies were 
rapidly disintegrating. Though in the neigh- 
borhood of Lodz and Lowicz German successes 
were reported, the main story of the fighting 
along the eastern battleline was one of Ger- 
man disaster. 

When December was ushered in it appeared 
that the Russians by mere force of numbers 
had checked finally the German advance upon 
Warsaw. Not much was heard of the earlier 




Cossacks capture German spies on the thatched roof of a Polish farmhouse 



128 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



129 



Russian promise of 
" Berlin in three weeks," 
butthedecisivenesswith 
which the German ad- 
vance upon Warsaw had 
been stopped without 
compelling the Russians 
to withdraw from either 
East Prussia or Galicia 
was generally accepted 
by observers as indica- 
tive of the end. 

Then in a few weeks 
Von Hindenburg, 
backed by the marvelous 
efficiency of the German 
army, turned the tables 
tor the third time, and 
once again Berlin rang 
with the praises of her 
new war-lord. 

All of Von Hinden- 
burg's plans centred 
upon a descent upon 
Russian Poland from 
East Prussia. Much of the territory in which 
he planned to operate was marshy, full of small 
lakes, and intersected with sluggish streams. 




soners jusr as captured 



usually 
sanitary corps 



ntion troin th« 



The roads were mere dirt highways difficult 
in wet weather for ordinary luggage vans, 
but utterly impassable for the heavy artillery 




\ view of the banks of the river San in Przemysl. This picture was made while the Russians had possession of the Galician 
fortress which they took after a protracted sieee hut were unahle to hold 



130 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



131 



which Von Hindenburg intended to marshal 
against his foe. In December, then, the Ger- 
mans began to prepare for a winter campaign 
and a third attack 
on Warsaw. The 4, 

frozen roads and 
rivers were to be 
the highways; the 
snow should bear 
the German bag- 
gage trains newly 
mounted on run- 
ners. The familiar 
gray-green of the 
German infantry 
disappeared, or was 
covered up by 
heavy sheepskin 
coats, white and in- 
visible against the 
snow Cannon 
were mounted on 
runners. Motor 
sledges of new types 
appeared. Scout- 
ing parties on foot 
were equipped with 
skiis. Great depots 
of winter supplies 
were established at 
Thorn and Posen, 
Lodz, the chief 
manufacturing 
town of Poland, 
and Lowicz, an im- 
portant railroad 
centre, were heavily 
fortified, the indus- 
trial edifices of the 
towns being torn 
down to supply ma- 
terial for the forts, 
and guns brought 
from the Krupp 
Works in Essen for 
the armament. 

In the struggle 
for Warsaw, which 
became toward the 
end of the year the 
chief bone of con- 
tention in the eastern theatre of war, the 
price paid by each of the contestants was a 
heavy one. Owing to the policy of secrecy 
adopted by all the governments involved, 
the precise losses of each in any given battle, 



campaign, or month of the war will not be 
known definitely for years, or until official 
historians begin to give out the authorized 




Fighting with th 



accounts of the campaigns. Petrograd, how- 
ever, claimed that the Germans had lost more 
than 200,000 men in their efforts to reach 
Warsaw up to January, 191 5. Prisoners to 
the number of 135,840 were claimed by the 



132 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Austrians laying a tit-Id teleph 



Russians. These figures 
were strenuously denied 
by the Germans who 
claimed themselves 
to hold 306,290 Rus- 
sian prisoners, 
besides 3,575 
officers. 

On the last « 
day of the year 
the Germans .^ 
claimed to 
have taken 3g 
136,000 pris- 
oners, 100 can- 
non, and 300 "j 
machine guns in 
the Poland cam- 
paign within two 
months. 

Yet despite 
this fierce fight- 
ing, this marshaling of 
legions of men and multi- 
tudes of guns from pro- 
digious distances — Von 
Hindenburg was said to 
have 30,000 auto trucks 
for transportation purposes — this campaign 
ended with the struggling forces just where 
they began. 

But early in the spring of 1915 the Rus- 
sians, being in possession of Przemysl, deter- 
mined to invade Hungary by way of the 
Carpathian passes. For the time operations 
in East Prussia 
were confined on 
the part of the 
Russians strictly 
to the defensive. 
The Germans in- 
deed were press- 
ing them hard 
enough there to 
keep them busy. 
The advance 
through the Car- 
pathian Moun- 
tains went well 
enough at theout- 
set. As in the 
earlier attacks the 
Austrians proved 
no match for the 
multitudinous 
soldiers of the 



across a stream 




Great White Czar. But 
the Germans rushed re- 
enforcements and leaders 
to the threatened 
point and just at the 
most critical mo- 
ment struck the 
Russian line on 
the D u n a j e c 
River, broke it, 
and therebv 
flanking the 
line through 
the Carpath- 
ians, forced 
the hurried re- 
treat of the Rus- 
sians. Almost 
simultaneously 
up in East Prus- 
sia the Germans 
started a drive 
with the idea of forcing 
the Russians back against 
Warsaw. North and 
south the Teutonic offen- 
sive was successful. The 
Russian line which had 
extended in an approximately direct line from 
the border of East Prussia to the Carpathians 
was bent into an acute angle like a pair of 
partly open dividers with Warsaw at the point 
of junction. It soon became impossible for 
the Russians to maintain their line of com- 
munications from Warsaw to the south, and 
just as the second 
year of the war 
was beginning in 
August, 1 9 15, 
that capital was 
evacuated and 
eagerly seized by 
the Germans. 

The fall of War- 
sawwas the signal 
for another gen- 
eral Russian re- 
treat — the third 
apparently irre- 
trievable reverse 
suffered by the 
armies of that 
country since the 
beginning of the 
war. Once again 

nrecting apparatus East Prussia was 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



133 



swept clear of the invaders. The Carpath- tion of Petrograd, the capital of the Czar's 

ian passes saw their marching columns re- empire. 

coiling in disorder toward Russian territory. This high ambition, however, was not des- 

Galicia and the fortified towns taken at such tined to be gratified. The line the Russians 




AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 



Kolomea 



GERMAN 
□ AUSTRIAN 
■ RUSSIAN 
B Army Corps of about 50,000 
men with auxiliaries 
+++ Position of Lines May 15, 1915. 
SCALE OF MILES 



RNOWITZ 



The eastern front in the early summer of 1916 



heavy cost were abandoned. Worse than 
all, the Germans swept triumphantly through 
Russian Poland, not content with Warsaw 
alone, but seizing smaller cities and the rail- 
roads which gave them control of all that 
part of Russian territory. The retreat of the 
Russians did not end until their right flank 
was rested on the Gulf of Riga, and the ex- 
ultation of the Germans did not hesitate 
at predicting their own speedy occupa- 



established with their right resting on Riga 
stood firm. The shortage of ammunition 
that had cost the followers of the Czar so dear 
was met by rushing trains across Siberia 
bringing the output of Japanese factories — 
the chief contribution of Japan to her allies. 
The dogged Russian courage suffered not a 
bit by the army's reverses, and after brief 
recuperations the Russian banners swept for- 
ward again over the thrice fought fields. 



134 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 







THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Making 16,000 loaves of bread for daily consumption in the German army 

CHRONOLOGY OF PERIOD TREATED IN CHAPTER IV 



July 28. Austria declares war on Servia. Russians mobil- 
izing. 

July 30. Kaiser demands that Russia halt mobilization within 
twenty-four hours. 

August I. Germany declares war on Russia. 

August 2. Russians cross German frontier. 

August 5. Austria declares war on Russia. 

August 8. Germany invades Finland. 

August 9. Russians invade Austria; are repulsed by Germans 
near Tilsit. 

August 10. Germans concentrate on Russian frontier. 

August 1 1. Russians press on into East Prussia. 

August 14. Russians defeat Austrians on the Dniester. 

August 17. Russia demands from Turkey the unrestricted 
use of the Dardanelles. 

August 19. Russians victorious over Austrians at Padolia. 

August 20. Russians occupy Gumbinnen and Lyck in East 
Prussia. 

August 23. Continued Russian successes carry Czar's armies 
fifty miles into Prussia. 

August 24. Austria abandons Servian campaign to meet in- 
vading Russians. 

August 26. Russians sweep over Prussia menacing Konigs- 
berg and Posen. 

August 27. Russians take Tilsit. Germans still steadily 
retreating. 

August 28. Russians reach Allenstein. 

August 29. Russians invest Konigsberg in East Prussia and 
Lemberg in Galicia. 

August 30. Russians advance to the Vistula and bombard 
Thorn and Graudenz, Battle of Tannenberg begun. 



September 1. Germans inflict crushing defeat on Russians ;r 
Tannenberg. 

Septembers. Russians victorious around Lemberg, but re- 
treating in East Prussia. 
September 5. Russians take Lemberg and Halicz. Begin new 

march on Prussia. 
September 7. Russians closing in on Przemysl. 
September 9. Last Austrians driven from Russian Poland. 
September 10. Russians invade Silesia and menace Breslau. 
September 11. Serbs and Montenegrins take the offensive 

against Austria. 
September 13. Russian victories near Lemberg. Russo- 

Serb army menaces Budapest. 
September 17. Austrians retreat before Russians toward 

Cracow. 
September 20. Russians attack Jaroslav and Przemvsl. 
September 24. Relieving force of Germans occupy Cracow. 
September 26. Russians enter Przemysl. 
September 28. Russians cross the Carpathians and invade 

Hungary. 
Oetober 3. . Germans begin evacuating Russian Poland. 
October 5. Russians advancing along all lines. Approach 

Allenstein and Cracow. 

October 7. Germans bring reinforcements from Konigsberg 
and check Russians 

Oetober 9. Russians bombard Przemysl. 

October 12. Russians abandon siege of Prz.-mysl and retreat 
from Galicia. (Many weeks later it was learned that this 
sudden retreat of the Russians in the face of apparently un- 
interrupted successes was caused by a sudden failure of their 
supply of ammunition.) 



136 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



October 13. Russians defeated before Warsaw, and fall of 
the city believed to be inevitable. 

October 17. Heavy fighting around Warsaw and Przemysl. 

October 18. Germans repulsed at passage of the Vistula with 
heavy losses. 

October 24. Russians drive Germans back forty miles from 
Warsaw. 

October 28. Germans admit the retreat of their army along 
the Vistula and in Russian Poland in the face of heavy 
Russian reinforcements. 

November 2. Russians advance upon East Prussia. Warsaw 
apparently out of danger. 

November 6. Steady retreat of the German and Austrian 
armies in Russian Poland. 

November 10. Russian offensive unchecked. German army 
driven toward Masurian Lakes. Russian sieges of Cracow 
and Przemysl renewed. For the ensuing week all the ad- 
vantage in the fighting is with the Russians. 

November 25. Main German army seriously menaced in Rus- 
sian Poland. Heavy reinforcements sent forward, but the 
retreat continues with no change of fortune until the end of 
the month. 

December 1. Germans break through the Russian wing near 
Lodz, capturing 12,000 prisoners and twenty-five guns. 
Russians claim they have taken 50,600 Austrian prisoners 
in two weeks in Galicia. 

December 3. Germans claim the capture of 100,000 prisoners 
in battles in Poland. Austrians report the taking of Bel- 
grade with the bayonet. 

December 6. Germans occupy Lodz. 

December 9. Austrians defeated near Cracow. Russians 
claim that they have 750,000 Austrian and German prisoners 
in Russia. 

December 13. Germans are defeated in the Mlawa region. 

December 16. King Peter enters Belgrade at the head of an 
army. Servia now clear of invaders. 

December 17. Germans declare Russian offensive against 
Silesia and Posen to be broken. Russians deny the report, 
claiming they are shifting their battleline. 

December 20. Von Hindenburg again advancing upon War- 
saw. 

December 31. Germans claim to have taken 140,000 prison- 
ers, 100 cannon, and 300 machine guns in Poland since 
November. Russians declare that the Germans lost 
200,000 men in the battle of the Bzura. 

January 9, 1915. Germans renew offensive from direction of 
Mlawa. 

January 15. New Russian army marches north in Poland. 
Germans near Mlawa are in peril. 

January 16. Austrians bring up heavy artillery to hold the 
Uonajec River. 

January 21. Austrians rout the Russians on the Donajec. 

January 22. Budapest alarmed by approach of the Russians. 

January 27. Austrians mass ten army corps in southern 
Hungary; many German regiments among them. 

January 28. Great struggle for the Carpathians opens. 
Austro-German forces advance on an eighty-mile front. 

February 3. Russians gain in Hungary. German position 
north of the Vistula menaced. 

February 4. Von Hindenburg attacks Russian lines near 
Warsaw with 50,000 men. 

February 7. Germans compelled to withdraw troops from 
France to defend East Prussia. 

February 8. Germans begin transport by motor cars of 
600,000 men from Poland to East Prussia. 

February 12. Von Hindenburg wins a great battle in the 
Masurian Lakes, captures more than 30,000 prisoners with 



fifty cannon and sixty machine guns. Russian loss ap- 
proaches 50,000. 

February 15. Russian retreat from East Prussia checked. 
Russians force the fighting in Galicia and the Carpathians. 

March 2. Russians win Dukla Pass 

March 5. Russians on the offensive from the Baltic Sea to 
the Roumanian border. 

March 11. Number of men engaged in battles in northern 
Poland estimated at one million with a battleline of eighty 
miles. 

March 15. Russians capture the outer defences of Przemysl. 

March 19. Von Hindenburg starts a new offensive in central 
Poland. 

March 20. Statistics published in Petrograd show that 95 
towns and 4,500 villages in Russian Poland have been dev- 
astated as the result of German invasion with a damage 
of $500,000,000. 

March 22. Przemysl falls after being besieged since Septem- 
ber 2d.; 125,000 men, including nine Austrian Generals, 
taken; the strategic value of the place regarded as great. 

March 30. Russian advance in the Carpathians causes 
alarm. 160,000 German troops said to be rushing to the 
rescue. 

April 1. German Headquarters Staff reports that in March 
the German army in the east took 55,800 Russian prisoners, 
nine cannon, and sixty-one machine guns. 

April 11. After steady fighting, during which at times the 
armies operated in seven feet of snow, the Russians occupy 
all the main ridges of the Carpathians; 280,000 Germans, or 
seven army corps, are helping the Austrians in Hungary. 

April 14. Petrograd estimates that 4,000,000 combatants, 
including both sides, are engaged in the Carpathians. 

April 18. Reviewing the Carpathian campaign the Russian 
General Staff declares that since the beginning of March 
the Russians have carried seventy-five miles of the principal 
chain of the Carpathians, have taken ''0,000 prisoners, 
thirty field guns, and 200 machine guns. 

May 3. Sudden Russian weakness apparent. General von 
Mackensen defeats the Russians in west Galicia taking 
30,000 prisoners and many guns. A continued Austro- 
German advance begins lasting with slight checks until the 
last of the month. Jaroslav is retaken by the Teutons and 
Przemysl menaced. 

May 21. Austrians announce that since May 1st they have 
taken 194,000 Russian prisoners; Germans declare that 
General Mackensen since May 1st has taken 104,000 pris- 
oners, 72 cannon, and 253 machine guns; the Russian state- 
ment declares that the losses of the Austro-Germans are aver- 
aging 10,000 a day and that they have used between two 
and three million shells in the recent fighting. 

June 3. Austro-German troops capture Przemysl which had 
been held by the Russians since March 22d. 

June 10. Russians again take the offensive in the Baltic 
provinces and Galicia. 

June 22. Lemberg falls to the Austro-German forces, after 
having been held by the Russians since September 3d. 
Russians retreating throughout Galicia. 

July J. Berlin reports that from May 2d to June 27th, 1,630 
officers and 520,000 men of the Russian army have been cap- 
tured besides more than a thousand field and machine guns. 

July 15. Germans renew their drive toward Warsaw. Hin- 
denburg advancing from the north and Mackensen from the 
south. 

July 22. Russians in retreat everywhere laying waste the 
country as they retire, and clinging desperately to Warsaw. 

August 5. Warsaw taken by the Germans under Prince 
Leopold. Russians retire in good order, saving their 
entire army. 




Zeppelin L-15 brought down by anti-aircraft guns off the coast of Kent. The crew were rescued byjEnglish trawlers and treated 

as ordinary prisoners of war 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 







C H A P T E R V 



THE WORK OF THE NAVIES — DISAPPEARANCE OF GERMAN MERCHANT SHIPS — 

COMMERCE DESTROYERS GERMAN NAVAL STRATEGY CAPTAIN WEDDIGEN's 

EXPLOIT— THREE FLEET BATTLES NAVAL RECORD FOR TWO YEARS 



k T THE beginning of the war the 
one thing which seemed absolutely 
inevitable in the conflict was that 
the British fleet would 
promptly and efficiently 
sweep the seas of all 
signs of German naval 
power. 

It had long been the 
policy of Great Britain to 
maintain a naval force at 
least as great as that of 
any two of her possible 
rivals. In 191 4, notwith- 
standing the rapid devel- 
opment of the German 
fleet under the ambitious 
care of the Kaiser, Great 
Britain maintained an 
even more overpowering 
standard of superiority. 
Indeed the increase of 
the British fleet had been 
spurred to almost fever- 
ish activity by the indi- 
cation of a determination 
on the part of Germany 
to attempt to equal, if 
not to exceed it, in power. 
In 1900 the preamble to 
the German navy act 
frankly expressed the 
purpose of the German nation to build a 
fleet which should cope on no unequal terms 
with that of Great Britain. That started the 
race in naval construction, and in 1906-8 
England was aghast at the discovery that 
while she had laid down eight ships of the 
dreadnought type, Germany had laid down 
nine. From this moment rivalry in ship 
building was unlimited. Battleships were 
described as old when they had been in com- 
mission but four years. Nothing smaller 




than the dreadnought with ten of the largest 
rifles was considered worth while, and the 
type soon developed into the superd read- 
nought class of 25,000 tons with ten 13-inch 
and twelve 6-inch guns with an armor belt a 
foot thick at its point of greatest weight. 
Such a ship would carry more than a thousand 
officers and men and cost about $10,000,000. 
Of vessels of this type Great Britain had 
eleven complete and three nearly so in 1914; 
Germany had none, though three were under 
construction. Of the next type, the dread- 
nought battleship, Germany and England 
had each thirteen. 

During the course of the war the shipyards 
of both England and Germany had been busy 
day and night, but the secrecy which envel- 
oped all governmental activities at that time 
preclude any statement of the war-time addi- 
tions made to the belligerent fleets. At the 
beginning of the war the sea power of the 
hostile nations may be roughly estimated 
as follows: 

Reduced to its very lowest terms of state- 
ment the British navy at the opening of the 
war consisted of 60 modern battleships, 
9 battle cruisers, 34 armored cruisers, 17 
heavy protected cruisers, 70 light cruisers, 
232 destroyers then ready and 16 building, 
59 torpedo boats (and 50 old ones), and 75 
submarines, besides 52 sea-going auxiliaries of 
the fleet, such as mother ships for destroyers, 
mine-layers, distilling ships, oil ships, repair 
and hospital ships. 

The French navy, though fourth in the 
list of naval powers, naturally follows here 
as England's ally. It had 18 battleships, 
together with eight building at the war's 
commencement, 19 armored cruisers, 2 pro- 
tected cruisers, and 10 light cruisers. 1 he 
French navy was peculiarly strong in de- 
stroyers, torpedo boats, and submarines, hav- 
ing 84 of the first class, 135 torpedo boats, 



140 



THE NATIONS 
on the 



AT WAR 



and 78 submarines with a numb 
stocks at the beginning of the war. 

Russia, as a naval power, was of little im- 
portance in the conflict. Her losing war with 
Japan had left her with but three of her old 




The Kaiser and his naval heads 



-Admiral von Tirpitz, in centre, and Admiral von Holt 
zendorf at the right 



battleships, and these with three of later 
construction, 6 armored cruisers, 91 destroy- 
ers, and 55 submarines made up her effective 
fleet which at the beginning of the war was 
mainly in the Black Sea. 

The navy of Japan, though powerful and 
highly efficient, may be ignored here as its 
service was mainly in the Pacific. 



To meet this naval strength Germany of- 
fered naturally the most powerful fleet, which 
at the outbreak of war was tied with that of 
the United States in the struggle for second 
place. On her ships' roster at the declaration 
of war were 36 battle- 
ships, 5 battle cruisers, 
9 armored cruisers, and 
43 cruisers as the sea- 
going fleet. She had 
also 130 destroyers and 
27 submarines. The 
first loss to the navy 
was that of a subma- 
rine, sunk by a British 
cruiser. For some 
reason Germany was 
weak in torpedo boats. 
A u s t r i a-H u n g a r y 
entered the struggle 
with 9 battleships, 10 
light cruisers, 18 de- 
stroyers, 63 torpedo 
boats, and 6 sub- 
marines. 

It has already been 
pointed out that the 
obvious design of the 
Germans to challenge 
British supremacy on 
the ocean had much to 
do with the entrance of 
. Great Britain upon the 
war. It was inter- 
national gossip that 
the German officers 
were eager for the test, 
and stories were com- 
mon of a toast of singu- 
lar brevity and cryptic 
meaning that was 
drunk at the German 
naval dinner boards 
when no foreign guests 
were present: " Der 
Tag" — "The Day" — 
always brought the 
officers to their feet 
with brimming glasses, for it hailed in an- 
ticipation the day when they should do battle 
of Great Britain on the seas she had so long 
professed to rule. 

That day, however, did not come soon, nor 
did it bring glory. Almost instantly upon 
the declaration of war the German flag dis- 
appeared from the high seas. Merchantmen 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



swiftly noti- 
fied by wire- 
less sought 
the shelter of 
neutral ports 
— more than 
$ 100,000,000 
worth of Ger- 
man liners be- 
ing tied up in 
the port of 
New York 
alone. The 
British navy 
swiftly de- 
scended upon 
Germany's 
colonies 
t h roughout 
the world and 
took posses- 
sion of them. 
A few German 
commerce de- 
stroyers re- 
mained at sea 
and preyed 
upon'the mer- 
chant ship- 
ping of the 




Copyright by Underwood S: Ur 

One of the most remarkable of photographs, taken from the bridge of a 
during a battle in the skies in a German air raid on England 



Zeppelin 



141 

Allies until 
run down by 
the British 
navy and de- 
stroyed. But 
the great 
fighting fleet 
of Germany 
took refuge in 
the harbors of 
Kiel and Cux- 
haven and 
waited long 
there before 
offering even 
partial battle 
to the British 
fleet. This 
was wis e 
strategy but 
hardly glori- 
ous. The Brit- 
ish sneered 
at the re- 
fusal of the 
Germans to 
fight against 
overwhelming 
odds, and 
Winston 




German battleship squadron with its guardian Zeppelin 



Photo by Paul Thompson 



142 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Churchill, first Lord of the Admi 
ishly assured Parliament that "the 
soon be dug out of their hole." 

It was a braggart metaphor an 
one. The rats came out of the 
they had a chance of inflic 
ous damage upon the wait 
ish. The latter for their part 
the first two years of the war 
to follow the Germans into 
treat. The British strategy 
period offered no parallel 
of Farragut in our Civil 
damned the torpedoes and 
head at Mobile and New 
Orleans, or Dewey when 



ralty, fool- 
rats would 

d a foolish 
hole when 
ting seri- 
ing Brit- 
never in 
sought 
their re- 
o f this 
to that 
War who 
went a- 



It became an outpost far at sea from which sub- 
marines could continually menace the British 
fleet and guard against the nearer approach of 
enemy vessels to the German naval bases, 
Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, and Kiel. At Kiel 
is the canal connecting the North Sea with 
the Baltic, which in effect multiplies the 
German North Sea fleet by two. If menaced 
by the British fleet in the North Sea the Ger- 
man ships of war could retire through this 
canal to the Baltic. Should the British 
attempt to pursue through the difficult, 
tortuous, and well-mined channels of the 
Skagerak and Cattegat north of Denmark, 
the German fleet could slip out into the North 
Sea and ravage the British coasts before their 




The deadly British destroyers. A 1,000-ton destroyer in a heavy sea 



he pushed at night into the harbor of Manila, 
careless alike of the strength of the forts or 
the presence of the mines that guarded its 
entrance. The Admiralty ordered Sir John 
Jellicoe, commander in-chief of the home 
fleet, the day war was declared to "find the 
enemy, capture or destroy him." The Ad- 
miral had no trouble in finding the enemy, 
but at the end of two years he had neither 
captured nor destroyed him. 

The island of Heligoland, which stands 
thirty-two miles from the German coast, 
was sold to Germany in 1890 by Lord Salisbury 
and was immediately made by its new posses- 
sors a fortress as impregnable as Gibraltar. 



defenders could return. This situation en- 
abled the Germans to play fast and loose with 
the British and avoid any serious conflict in 
the North Sea until the latter part of Janu- 
ary, 191 5. 

Prior to that date there were occasional 
losses inflicted upon the British navy by 
floating mines or by submarines. Most of 
these may be ignored in this rapid narrative 
as none of them seriously affected the strength 
of the British navy as a whole. At the battle 
off Heligoland a British squadron of battle 
cruisers and destroyers under command of 
Rear-Admiral Sir David Beatty fell upon 
four German cruisers and a number of de- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



stroyers and 
sunk three of 
the former. It 
was more of a 
massacre than 
a battle, for the 
Germans were 
overwhelmingly 
outnumbered. 
They fought 
with a g a 1 - 
lantry that im- 
pressed even 
their oppon- 
ents but had 
no chance. A 
young British 
officer on one 
of Beatty's 
ships in de- 
scribing the 
action said, 
"There really 
was nothing 
for us to do ex- 
cept shoot the 
enemy as Pa 
shoots pheas- 
ants." None 
the less London 
went wild over 
the news of 
this first vic- 
tory, much as 
in 1898 all 
American jour- 
nalism rushed 
out extras to 
tell of the tri- 
umph of Ad- 
miral Sampson 
when he cap- 
tured a Spanish 
steamer, the 
captain of 
which, not 
knowing that 
war had been 
declared, took 
pains to bring 
his ship close to 
the American 
fleet, in order, 
as he said, that 
he "might salute 
ships." 








British destroyers sinking a German submarine 



all those beautiful war- The Germans, however, quickly 

revenge. On the morning of Septe 



had their 
mber 22d 



144 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



three British cruisers, 
the Aboukir, Cressy, and 
Hague were patrolling 
the North Sea not far 
from the Hook of Hol- 
land. They were all 
three cruisers of the 
same class; 12,000 tons 
each, with a 6-inch 
armor belt amidships, 
with a main battery of 
two 9.2 inch guns and 
twelve 6-inch, and a 
complement of 755 men 
each. Well within the 
range of action of the 
German submarine and 
torpedo boats, their of- 
ficers may well be sup- 
posed to have been all 
vigilance. At such a time 
a warship is all eyes. 

Nevertheless, from 
none of these ships was 
a warning cry raised 
until a German sub- 
marine had slipped up 
to within a mile, fired 
her torpedo, and sent 
the Aboukir to her de- 
struction. Gallantly, 
but as the event showed, 
rashly, her sister cruisers 
rushed to the aid of the 
stricken ship, but were 
themselves torpedoed 
by the same unseen 
enemy and sent to the 
bottom. Its deadly 
work completed, itself 
too small to be of aid in 
rescuing any of the sur- 
vivors, the German sub- 
marine c/-9, Captain 
Otto Weddigen, with 
26 men aboard, slipped 
away as secretly as it 
had stolen up and 
reached its base at Wilhelmshaven in safety. 

At the moment this was the most notable 
achievement in the history of submarine war- 
fare. Only the vaguest details of the exploit 
were permitted to leak out, the German War 
Office not being anxious for any intelligence 
to be made public that might interfere with 
the success of subsequent raids of the same 




Zeppelin over London spotted by a searchlight 



sort, while the British 
Admiralty was not de- 
sirous of giving any ad- 
ditional publicity to so 
disquieting an illustra- 
tion of the helplessness 
of even armored ships 
before the sinister sub- 
marine. An American 
newspaper, the New 
York World, secured and 
published the following 
description of the ex- 
ploit from Captain Wed- 
digen himself. After tell- 
ing of his voyage, the 
duration of which he 
conceals, he says that 
when eighteen miles 
northwest of the Hook 
of Holland he sighted 
through his periscope 
three British cruisers. 

"I submerged com- 
pletely and laid my 
course so as to bring up 
in the centre of the trio, 
which held a sort of tri- 
angular formation. I 
could see their gray- 
black sides riding high 
over the water. 

"When I first sighted 
them they were near 
enough for torpedo 
^BP m££*;&* work, but I wanted to 
make my aim sure, so I 
went down and in on 
them. I had taken the 
position of the three 
ships before submerging 
and I succeeded in get- 
ting another flash 
through my periscope 
before I began action. 
I soon reached what I 
regarded as a good 
shooting point. 

"Then I loosed one of my torpedoes at the 
middle ship. I was then about twelve feet 
underwater and got the shot off in good shape, 
my men handling the boat as if she had been 
a skiff. I climbed to the surface to get a 
sight through my tube of the effect, and dis- 
covered that the shot had gone straight and 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



>4 : 



•' 



& 



■-.■■■•. 



.'"iiiiF 1 



The French adaptation of the war Zeppelin 



true, striking the ship, which I learned later 
was the Aboukir, under one of her magazines, 
which in exploding helped the torpedo's work 
of destruction. 

"There was a fountain of water, a burst of 
smoke, a flash of fire, and part of the cruiser 
rose in the air. Then I heard a roar and felt 
reverberations sent through the water by the 
detonation. She had been broken apart and 
sank in a few minutes. The Aboukir had 
been stricken in a vital spot by an unseen force 
that made the blow all the greater. 

" Her crew were brave, and even with death 
staring them in the face kept to their posts, 
ready to handle their useless guns, for I sub- 
merged at once. But I stayed on top long 
enough to see the other cruisers, which I 
learned were the Cressy and 
Hoguc, turn and steam full 
speed to their dying sister, 
whose plight they 
could not under- 
stand, unless it had 
been due to an ac- 
cident. 

"The ships came 
on a mission of in- 
quiry and rescue, 
for many of the 
Aboukir' s crew were 
now in the water, 
the order having 
been given, 'Each 
man for himself.' 

"But soon the 
other two English 
cruisers learned what ha 
brought about the destruc- 
tion so suddenly. 

"As I reached my torpedo 




Stern view of a war Zeppelin 



depth I sent a second charge at the nearer 
of the oncoming vessels, which was the Hogue. 
The English were playing my game, for I 
had scarcely to move out of my position, 
which was a great aid, since it helped to keep 
me from detection. 

"On board my little boat the spirit of the 
German navy was to be seen in its best form. 
With enthusiasm every man held himself in 
check and gave attention to the work in hand. 
"The attack on the Hogue went true. But 
this time I did not have the advantageous aid 
of having the torpedo detonate under the 
magazine, so for twenty minutes the Hogue 
lay wounded and helpless on the surface be- 
fore she heaved, half turned over, and sank. 
"By this time, the third cruiser knew, of 
course, that the enemy was 
upon her and she sought as 
best she could to defend her- 
self. She loosed her 
torpedo defence bat- 
teries on both star- 
board and port, and 
stood her ground as 
if more anxious to 
help the many sail- 
ors who were in the 
water than to save 
herself. In common 
with the method of 
defending herself 
against a submarine 
attack, she steamed 
in a zigzag course, 
and this made it nec- 
essary for me to hold my tor- 
pedoes until I could lay a true 
course for them, which also 
made it necessary for me to 



146 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





Ja* 


r 




" WW 




m. ■-_!■- g- — ,. J — — ,. ji <■»-— ^^w-^- 












Pi^Vrc m00% 


"It^JS&^ffZmT 



H. M. S. ii'oH racing into action 



get nearer to the Cressy. I had come to the 
surface for a view and saw how wildly the 
fire was being sent from the ship. Small 
wonder that was when they did not know 
where to shoot, although one shot went un- 
pleasantly near us. 

"When I got within suitable range I sent 
away my third attack. This time I sent a 
second torpedo after the first to make the 
strike doubly certain. My crew were aiming 
like sharpshooters and both torpedoes went 
to their bull'seye. My luck was with me 
again, for the enemy was made useless and at 
once began sinking by her head. Then she 
careened far over, but all the while her men 
stayed at the guns looking for their invisible 
foe. They were brave and true to their coun- 
try's sea traditions. Then she eventually 
suffered a boiler explosion and completely 



turned turtle. With her keel uppermost she 
floated until the air got out from under her 
and then she sank with a loud sound, as if 
from a creature in pain. 

"The whole affair had taken less than one 
hour from the time of shooting off the first 
torpedo until the Cressy went to the bottom. 
Not one of the three had been able to use any 
of its big guns. I knew the wireless of the 
three cruisers had been calling for aid. I 
was still quite able to defend myself, but I 
knew that news of the disaster would call 
many English submarines and torpedo-boat 
destroyers, so having done my appointed 
work I set my course for home." 

More than 1,200 men went down with the 
threecruisers — done totheirdeath by a handful 
of but 26. Thirtv-six thousand tons of modern 




Sir John Jellicoe's flagship the Iron Duke 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



i47 



steel warships, packed with heavy guns and 
equipped with all the latest devices for mari- 
time warfare, were destroyed in an hour by a 
pigmy craft of 450 tons. What wonder that 
men the world over began to predict the 
abandonment even of the dreadnoughts, for 
all their weight of armor on their sides will 
avail them not a whit against attack from 
below. As the iron-clad sides of the Merri- 
mac, and the revolving turret of the little 
Monitor relegated to the scrapheap the 



that were either actively at war or allied with 
some of the belligerents, were absolutely 
closed to them. In neutral ports they could 
stav but one day and could take on supplies 
of coal and provisions only sufficient to take 
them to the nearest German port. At one 
time British, French, Japanese, and Russian 
warships were hunting these cruisers which 
somehow managed to keep the ocean, renew 
their stocks of coal, and sink or burn British 
ships in every one of the seven seas. By 



^ 'jfijg 



ench battleship Ju 



"wooden walls of England," so the sub- 
marine, and its scarcely less sinister coadjutor, 
the airship, may put an end to the $1 2,000,000 
floating forts of steel which the Powers have 
been building. 

Except for submarine activities, the Ger- 
man navy was heard from chiefly in the 
earlier months of the war by the work of its 
commerce destroyers. Of these four were at 
sea when war was declared: the Emden, 
Karlsruhe, Prinz Eitel, and Kronprinz Fried- 
rich. Of these the first two alone were man- 
of-war built, the others were converted 
merchantmen. The expedients by which the 
Germans kept these ships at sea for months 
after the declaration of war showed extraor- 
dinary cunning and executive genius. Most 
of the ports of the world, being in countries 




In- French tie- 



British admission the Emden had sunk twenty 
British merchantmen and the Karlsruhe 
thirteen by the 15th of October. The Emden 
had been particularly adventurous. Late in 
October she astonished the world by rigging 
up a fourth smokestack to disguise her 
identitv, and slipping into the harbor of 
Penang under a Japanese flag. The senti- 
nels on the parapet were completely deceived 
and all the shipping in the harbor was amazed 
when the strange ship without anchoring let 
slip a torpedo which sunk a French destroyer, 
turned her guns upon the Russian cruiser to 
her complete destruction, and turning about, 
steamed safely out of the harbor. 

But the seas are too populous for the career 
of a raider to be a long one. The inevitable 
end came to the Emden November 10th, when 



148 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



she was overhauled by the Australian cruiser, 
Sidney, nearly double her size and carrying 
eight 6-inch guns to the Emden's ten 4- 
inch guns. The battle was but short, a run- 
ning one so far as the German ship was con- 
cerned. After two of her smokestacks had 
been shot away and the flames were sweeping 
her fore and aft she was driven ashore on 
Cocos Island and burned. During her entire 
career she had captured and destroyed 31 



the war than did Germany, but as the German 
fleet remained in hiding behind the battle- 
ments of Heligoland and Kiel, submarines 
could not reach them. The British fleet in 
the open North Sea, and the thousands of 
British merchantmen going back and forth on 
all the lanes of ocean travel afforded ample 
opportunity for the activities of the under- 
sea terrors of the German navy. A frightful 
feature of submarine warfare is the enormous 




Destruction of the cruiser Mainz. This photograph was taken hy a sailor on one <>t the British ships engaged in the fight 
off Heligoland. At the moment the picture was taken the two tunnels of the Mainz had been shot away and flames were bursting 
through her deck. A few minutes later the doomed vessel sank, still defiantly firing to the last 



vessels, sending several others home as trans- 
ports for prisoners taken. 

The other German commerce destroyers 
met similar fates, with the exception of one, 
the Prinz Eitel, which amazed the nautical 
world by eluding all pursuers and slipping 
into Hampton Roads, where she was interned 
until the end of the war. 

The story of the submarines is one al- 
most for a volume in itself. The fruit of 
their activities was mainly gathered by the 
Germans. This was chiefly due to the fact 
that the British shipping, both naval and 
merchant, being at sea afforded the greater 
number of targets. Both Great Britain and 
France had more submarines at the opening of 



proportion of the death list to the total num- 
bers on the attacked record. The submarine 
can save no one. The torpedoed vessel goes 
down in but a few minutes. As a result 
practically all its crew are carried down to 
death. We have seen that more than 1,200 
men went down with the three cruisers that 
Weddigen sunk. Later 475 out of 544 men 
on the British cruiser Hawk were sacrificed 
to submarine attack. The British cruiser 
Pallada carried down practically her entire 
crew of 558 men. The Formidable was sent 
down with 600 men. In the first ten weeks 
of the war submarines destroyed seven 
British cruisers with a tonnage of 48,370 and 
crews numbering 3,397, of whom 2,298 were 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



149 



lost — a frightful percentage illustrating the 
deadliness of submarine attack. 

Nor did the German submarines limit their 
activities to attacks upon vessels of war. 
Early in the war the British declared a block- 
ade of the entire German coast, including the 
Baltic ports. The form of this blockade was 
new to international law. A lawful blockade 
has hitherto been held to require the actual 
blocking of entrance to the enemy's ports by 



many. This raised one of the new questions 
of international law of which this war has been 
prolific and which are yet to be determined. 
The Germans met this policy by decreeing the 
blockade of the British coasts, although they 
had no way of enforcing it, since their fleet 
could not venture forth in the presence of the 
enormously superior British force. They 
could only partially enforce it by the use of 
submarines, and with these vessels in the 




warships stationed outside them. A block- 
ade of this sort we maintained during the 
Civil War with the utmost rigor, and it con- 
tributed largely to the downfall of the Con- 
federacy. Such a blockade, however, can 
never again be maintained owing to the per- 
fection of the submarine. A fleet, stationed 
off the mouth of a harbor, like that at New 
York, or at Charleston, would be subject at all 
times to the attacks of submarines which 
would be held safely inside the harbor until 
the propitious moment for delivering their 
assaults. Accordingly the British under- 
took to blockade Germany by stationing their 
ships hundreds of miles from the ports, but in 
the regular lanes of commerce and seizing any 
ships which they might detect bound for Ger- 



uction off Cocos Island by the Australian Cruiser Sydney, had 
nd 25 merchant ships 

crowded waters immediately surrounding the 
British Isles they inflicted enormous damage 
upon British shipping. Neutral ships suf- 
fered as well, and from this sprung an issue be- 
tween Germany and the United States which 
narrowly escaped leading to war and which 
did result in materially curbing the German 
submarine activities. 

It has long been the recognized law of 
nations that a peaceful merchantman, sus- 
pected of violating a blockade, must be 
boarded by an officer from the warship which 
has halted her and if her character as a block- 
ade runner is proved she must either be taken 
with all her passengers and crew into a 
home port of her captor or the human beings 
aboard must be taken off and provided 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 










THE NATIONS AT WAR 



151 



with a safe means of escape before the vessel 
is sunk. 

The Germans insisted that observation of 
this rule would put their submarines in 
danger. They are fragile vessels, carrying no 
heavy guns, readily destroyed by either ram- 
ming or a single shot from a gun of 4-inch 
calibre, such as many of the British merchant- 
men were armed with. Accordingly under 
the orders of Admiral Von Tirpitz, chief of the 



matic controversy between the United States 
and Germany. It was dragged out for a year, 
greatly to the impatience of a large section of 
the American people who demanded swift and 
punitive action. In the end, however, Ger- 
many promised that in future no unarmed 
passenger vessels would be torpedoed at all, 
and that other vessels would only be de- 
stroyed after due warning and the removal of 
passengers and crew*. During the progress of 




(Ireat Britain arrays her war strengt 



1 In naval review .it Spithead, just before the 

greatest display of armed sea power ever made 



German navy, the German torpedo boats be- 
gan sinking merchantmen either without 
warning or with at most a very brief warning, 
and the allowance of perhaps ten minutes for 
the captain of the doomed vessel to remove his 
people in his own boats. The submarine, of 
course, can take no prisoners aboard. Re- 
peated instances of the heavy and wanton 
sacrifice of the lives of peaceful, and often 
neutral, citizens caused bitter protest on the 
part of neutral nations. The controversy 
reached a climax by the torpedoing, May 7, 
191 5, without warning, of the great British 
passenger liner, Lusitania, by which 1,392 
men and women, many of them of national 
eminence, lost their lives. 

Out of this incident grew a prolonged diplo- 



the diplomatic discussion several submarine 
attacks occurred by which American lives were 
lost, and the irritation of the American people 
reached the point that almost forced an un- 
willing administration into war. 

As the efficiency of the submarine became 
more apparent German shipyards were rushed 
with construction. The size of the boats 
increased. Their cruising area was so ex- 
tended that before the second year of the war 
submarines voyaged as far as the entrance to 
the Mediterranean and even circumnavigated 
the British Isles. There was no part of 
British waters closed to them, and the 
Admiralty was aghast when the 23,000-ton 
battleship Audacious was sunk in the Irish 
Sea bv one of these invisible foes. The 



152 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



« 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



153 



British were no laggards. In 191 5 one of 
their submarines sailed from England, made 
its way through the Mediterranean and the 
Dardanelles, dived under five rows of mines, 
and sunk the Turkish battleship Mersudieh. 
So greatly was the field of action of the sub- 
marines extended that in July, 1916, one of 
them, the Deutschland, built expressly for 
carrying cargo, steamed all the way across the 
Atlantic and safely entered Chesapeake Bay 
despite the vigilance of British and French 
ships that had been warned of her coming. 
The vessel carried 1,500 tons of cargo, and 



from buoys, which were so equipped with 
signals that the thrust of the nose of an un- 
seen submarine would be shown along the 
whole line of the net. Once entangled the 
submarine's case was hopeless. Thereupon 
destroyers and small cruisers would gather at 
the spot, and after waiting a day or two for 
the ghastly purpose of allowing the crew of 
the strangled vessel to be smothered so that 
no resistance or explosion could be caused, 
would raise the submerged vessel and tow it 
to a British dock yard to be refitted for further 
use under a new flag. 




South African field artillery embarking on the auxiliary cruiser Armadale Castle 



enough fuel oil for a voyage of twice the 
distance. 

For the purpose of meeting the menace of 
the submarines, the British employed all the 
known weapons at their command such as 
destroyers and mines, and enforced vigilance 
on the part of trawlers in the North Sea. 
New expedients were adopted. Scouting 
aeroplanes, hanging over the surface of the 
water, could readily detect the presence of a 
submarine within fifty feet of the surface and 
by signalling to watching destroyers and tor- 
pedo boats often secure its destruction. The 
most deadly defence against the submarines, 
however, were the great steel nets hung by the 
British at various points in the English 
Channel and North Sea. These nets hung 



Among the first of the true naval battles, 
involving more than single ships, was one 
fought on November 1st, far from the main 
scene of hostilities. When war broke out 
Germany had a considerable naval force in 
the Pacific which it was the immediate pur- 
pose of the British and Japanese navies to 
destroy. Early in the war the German and 
Japanese squadrons had fought an incon- 
clusive battle in the Bay of Tsing-Tau, and 
later the Japanese had sunk the German 
cruiser JEolus off Honolulu. But the main 
German naval force in Pacific waters was a 
scattered squadron, including the Scharnhorst, 
N umber g, Gneisenau, and Dresden, so widely 
dispersed that probably no two of the fleet 
were within 2,000 miles' steaming distance of 



iS4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Sinking of the Falaba. The South African liner. Falaba, was torpedoed without warning and sank so rapidly that many pas- 
sengers had no time to take to the hoats 



each other. The way in which these ships 
were concentrated, though the Pacific navies 
of Japan and Great Britain were scouring the 
sea in pursuit of them, showed remarkable 
seamanship and an extraordinary efficiency 
on the part of the German bureau by which 
these vessels were guided safely through seas 
swarming with hostile craft. The concen- 
tration was successfully effected, and when 
the pursuing British squadron, under Rear- 
Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock, met Vice- 
Admiral Graf von Spee's fleet off Coronel on 
the coast of Chili, it was a sorry meeting for 
the British. The German squadron was 
superior in weight of metal and in speed. In 
respect to their heavy batteries only they 
compared thus: 



GERMAN 

Scharnhorst ) Eight 8.2-inch; 
Gneisenau j six 6-inch guns 



Leipzig 
Nurnberg 



Ten 4-inch guns 



Twelve 4-inch 
guns 



BRITISH 

Monmouth . Fourteen 6-inch 
guns 

Good Hope . Two 9.2-inch; 
sixteen 6-inch 



Glasgow 
Otranto 



. Two 6-inch; ten 
4-inch guns 



.Merely an 
armed transport 



The battle was fought in the evening be- 
tween six and seven o'clock in rough weather 
with a driving rain. The result was wholly 
disastrous to the British; the Monmouth was 
sunk, the Good Hope destroyed by an explo- 
sion and fire, and the other ships, sorely crip- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Admiral Sir David Beatty, who commanded rhe British battle cruiser squadron at the battle ot Jutland 




THE END OF 
Picture taken from the British ship Arethusa. Smoke to the right shows where the last torpedo struck. The Blilcher is afin 




Copyright by Internationa 



I "BLUCHER" 

sinking with about 800 men clustered on her sides and bottom. She floated about ten minutes after this photograph was taken 



I5§ 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



pled, limped away to the nearest ports of 
refuge. The German ships were practically 
unhurt and escaped without loss of life, six 
men on the Gneisenau being wounded. 

Twenty British ships had now been brought 
down by the German policy of attrition, and 
without commensurate losses by the enemy. 



who had the battleship Canopus and the two 
battle cruisers Invincible and Inflexib le, besides 
five cruisers in squadron. Without the two 
battle cruisers, however, the British were not 
markedly superior to the Germans, and as 
these were at first concealed, the Germans 
went gallantly into action believing that they 




Saloniki's liarbur thronged with boats of many nations. The port of Saloniki is one ot the busiest in the world, but all its 
activities are those of war. Ships of all the allied nations come and go, and the surface of the bay is literally covered with 
small boats of every conceivable form 



For the moment the boasted superiority of 
the British navy seemed a myth. 

But the world did not have long to wait for 
news that the British had taken full revenge 
upon the triumphant Admiral von Spee. On 
December 8th, off the Falkland Islands, an 
English fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir Freder- 
ick Sturdee overtook the victorious Ger- 
mans and utterly destroyed them, sinking the 
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig, and Num- 
ber g. 

This time the weight of metal and superi- 
ority of speed were on the side of the British 



had at least a fighting chance. But the 
British had not less than twenty 12-inch 
guns for which the Germans had no match 
whatsoever besides four of 7§-inch and 
thirty-eight of 6-inch. The Germans were 
not only hopelessly outclassed in weight of 
metal, but they were quite as far behind in the 
vital matter of speed. With their longer 
range, the British could batter their foes to 
pieces without exposing themselves, and did 
so. The Germans fought gamely and grimly, 
and save for the Dresden, which escaped, went 
down with colors flying. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



The first period of the 
war ended January 24, 
191 5, with a disaster to 
the German navy in the 
North Sea. On that day 
a German squadron of 
four battle cruisers, the 
Bliicher, Moltke, Seyd- 
litz, and Derfiinger, under 
command of Admiral 
Hibben, was steaming 
west, not far from the 
coast of England. Why 
the ships had left the 
snug refuge of Heligoland 
to brave the British guard 
is not explained. Prob- 
ably it was hoped that 
they might elude British 
vigilance, round the 
northern end of Scotland, 
and get out into the open 
sea there to prey on the 
shipping of the Allies as 
had the Emdcn and the 
Karlsruhe. If this had 
been the plan, the Ger- 
man authorities bungled 
it badly by attaching to 
the three fast ships of the 
squadron, which were 
capable of a speed of 26 
to 28 knots, the Bliicher 
which was barely able to 
turn off" 24 knots. 

Whatever the purpose 
of this expedition may 
have been, it was clearly 
not to fight, for, encount- 
ering a British squadron 
of five battle cruisers 
near the English coast 
the Germans instantly 
turned to flee. 

In Admiral Beatty's 
squadron were the Lion, 
Tiger, Princess Royal, 
New TLealand, and In- 
domitable. The Lion had 
13.5-inch guns; the main 
battery of the others was 
of 12-inch guns. In the 
German fleet only the 



« MTTLE 
^, SHIPS 



FIRST PHASE 
3-4-5 P.M. 



,». BATTLE 

CRUISERS 



16000 YARDS 



MAY- 3151 
1916 



o/BATTLE 

/cruisers 



SECOND PHASE 
4-40 -P.M. 



.<^HIGH 
W SEAS 
" FLEET 



\J 




BATTLE 

CRUISERS 

HINOENBERG 



INDEFATIGABLE 
1 QUEEN MARY \ SUNKAT 
INVICIBLE ) TURN 



BATTLE* X 
CRUI5ERS * 



THIRD PHASE 
J-00 P.M. 



* HIGH SEAS 
>S FLEET 



FOUR •.' 
QUEEN « 

ELIZABETH 



FOURTH PHASE 
6-00 P.M. 



ji'bATTLE 
o\CRUISERS 



V HIGH SEAS 
X^ FLEET 




9-00 P.M, 



Diagram showing fleet formation in Battle offjutland 



159 

German squadron as 23 
to 13 — a heavy disparity 
which justified Admiral 
Hibben in taking to flight. 
Unfortunately for him 
the disparity in speed was 
quite as much in favor of 
the British; and this fact, 
added to the longer range 
of their guns, put the 
whole German fleet at 
the pursuer's mercy, 
should the chase last long 
enough. When the battle 
opened the Germans 
were about 100 miles 
from Heligoland, with the 
leading British ship, the 
Lion, about 9.6 miles 
astern of her principal 
target the Bliicher. 

At a distance of nine 
and a half miles the Brit- 
ish gunners, themselves 
on a ship tossing on the 
turbulent waters of the 
North Sea, were aiming 
their shots at a mark not 
more than 90 feet wide, 
barely discernible on the 
horizon and rushing 
through the water at the 
rate of more than 25 
knots an hour. It seems 
incredible that under 
such conditions great 
damage could be done, 
but the accounts of sur- 
vivors tell how deadly 
was the marksmanship. 
One German bluejacket, 
saved from the waves 
after his ship had gone 
down, told to his captors 
this story of the fight as 
seen from the Bliicher: 

"We saw the big Eng- 
lish ships steadily over- 
hauling us. We knew 
that as we had more than 
a hundred miles to sail 
we would never get away. 
The first British ship 
opened fire at something 



Derfiinger mounted guns 

of 12-inch calibre. According to statistics like ten miles' range, and the carnage on the 

the gunfire of the British was to that of the Bliicher began. 



i6o 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





English dirigible balloon at manoeuvres 

"We were under fire first in the action and 
last. Practically every English ship poured 
projectile shell upon us. It was awful. I 
have never seen such gunnery and hope that 
as long as I live I never shall again. We 
could not fight such guns as the English ships 
had, and soon we had no guns with which to 
fight anything. Our decks were swept by 
shot, guns were smashed 
and lying in all directions, 
their crews wiped out. 

"One terrible shell 
from a big gun — I can- 
not forget it — burst right 
in the heart of the ship 
and killed scores of men. 
It fell where many men 
had collected, killing 
practically every man. 

"We all had our float- 
ing equipment. We soon 
needed it. One shell 
killed five men quite close 
to me, and it was only a 
matter of time when no- 
thing living would have 
been left upon the ship. 

"When we knew we 
were beaten and that our 
flag was not to come 
down manv of us were 



praying that the ship would go down, in 
order that no more men might be killed. 

"We would rather trust to the English 
picking us up after our ship had sunk than to 
missing us with those terrible guns. 

"I do not know what it was that finished 
the Bliicher. She was battered to pieces 
above decks and had many holes. I heard 
she was struck by a torpedo and went down 
after that. If that is true, we have to thank 
the ship that torpedoed us for saving hun- 
dreds of lives. 

"When the ship was going down, I jumped 
clear and tried to swim off. When she turned 
over some caught hold of some part of her, 
but she sank from under us. It was ter- 
ribly cold in the water. There were wounded 
men and dead men. Terribly shattered 
swimmers shouting for help were all around 
me. 

"My mind is confused after that. I was 
picked up by a small English warship, as I 
hoped. The men were very kind. We were 
warmed, fed and clothed." 

The final stroke to the Bliicher was de- 
livered by a torpedo, though she had been put 
out of action before that coup de grace. Of 
her crew of 835, more than 700 were lost, and 
it is a striking evidence of the inadequacy of 
the German gunfire that the loss on the Lion 
which led the British pursuers was only eleven 
wounded. None were killed in the British 
fleet. In this disparity of losses the action 




Armored car of a dirigible balloon. Showing the relative size of the car, which will 
accommodate more than a dozen men. It is armed with machine guns and bomb- 
dropping devices 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



161 



was somewhat rem- 
iniscent of the battle 
of Santiago in the 
Spanish - American 
War. But any com- 
parison of the two 
battles rebounds 
very greatly to the 
superior credit of 
the American navy. 
For at Santiago the 
pursuit was not 
checked nor the fires 
slackened until the 
last Spanish ship lay 

a helpless, smoking wreck on the coast of May 31, 1916, the advance ship of a British 
Cuba. But in this North Sea battle three of fleet, cruising off" Jutland, came into contact 
the German ships escaped, despitethesuperior with a German fleet and there followed a 




A French triplane 



strength and speed of their British pursuers. 



It was eighteen months before 
great rival fleets met again in 
Meanwhile the naval activities of 
the Allies were confined mainly to 
some single ship actions in the 
Mediterranean and Adriatic, and 
to the determined but abortive ef- 
fort of the British fleet 
to pass the Dardan- 
elles. The former were 
of no material bearing 
on the progress of the 
war, and of the latter 
an account will be 
published in another 
chapter. 



the two 
combat. 




I by L'nderwood & Underwood 

The latest product of the Krupp works is a specially designed gun for 
defense against the enemy of the clouds 



fierce battle lasting all day and part of the 
night, the outcome of which was verv nearly 
a draw. The Germans at first claimed com- 
plete victory, and for that matter, still do. 
The British at the outset were inclined to 
admit, if not defeat, at least such heavy losses 
as to indicate the equality of the German sea 
fighters with what had been supposed to be 
the irresistible British navy. Later, how- 
ever, knowledge of the extent of the German 
losses led the British to claim that the victory 
rested with them. 

The day was hazy, the surface of the sea 
calm, affording every opportunity for skil- 
ful marksmanship. The British fleet, ex- 
tending over an area of nearly 300 square 
miles, was sweeping across the North Sea 
toward the Skagerack in pursuance of 
the policy of patroling those waters 
periodically. In advance was the light 
squadron of battle cruisers and light 
cruisers under Admiral Sir David 
Beatty. In advance of the cruisers, in 
accordance with British naval tactics, 
was a line of steam trawlers and de- 
stroyers. At about 3 45 p. m. a cloud 
of smoke in the distance told of the 
coming of a fleet which could be only 
the Germans. It was, in fact, the full 
German High Seas Fleet under com- 
mand of Admiral Scheer. These vessels 
were cruising in the hope of encounter- 
ing some detached British force which 
they might attack and cut off before 
the full fleet of Admiral Jellicoe could 
come up. The situation seemed to 
afford them this opportunity, for that 
branch of the fleet under Admiral 



\6z 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Beatty was distinctly inferior to the German 
force, while Admiral Jellicoe was far in the 
rear with the dreadnoughts. Whatever 
the odds might be, on either side the men 
were eager for the fray. Beatty with his 
swift battle cruisers gave no heed to the 
slowness of the battleships behind him, 
but plunged into the attack which the Ger- 



the battle cruisers, with their lighter arma- 
ment and with their weight of armor sacrificed 
to speed, were in this case opposed to battle- 
ships. The result proved the contention of 
naval experts the world over that the battle- 
ship is absolutely essential to the strength of 
the navy. Even while the battle was in 
progress a debate was going on in the Ameri- 




London watching for aerial foes by night 



mans for their part invited and cheerfully 
sustained. Such was the mist that the hos- 
tile lines were not visible at a distance of 
more than six miles. This was at the outset 
greatly in favor of the Germans, who had their 
heavier vessels, with their bigger guns, in ac- 
tion at the very first. As a result of this, al- 
though possibly in the case of the Invincible, 
because of a mine, three of Beatty 's ships, the 
Indefatigable, the Invincible, and the Queen 
Mary, were sunk within twenty minutes of 
the beginning of the action. An additional 
handicap to the British was that while their 
foes were enveloped in mist, thev themselves 
were outside of the bank of fog and clearly 
outlined against a yellowish sky. Moreover, 



can Congress over the question whether in 
our future navy battleships should not be 
wholly replaced by battle cruisers. The 
news from the North Sea caused an abrupt 
abandonment of this theory. 

While the main execution done among the 
principal ships on either side in this battle 
appears to have been due to the fire of great 
guns, the destroyers and torpedo boats were 
busy from the start. The duty of these little 
craft was twofold : namely, to attack the 
enemies' capital ships and to protect their 
own from like attack. It would appear, 
however, that the value of the torpedo in a 
pitched battle between fleets has been largely 
overestimated. This war has demonstrated 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



163 



sufficiently its deadliness when launched gable, and New Zealand, were on a southeast- 

from an unseen submarine, or, for that matter, erly course, followed at about two miles, dis- 

from any unexpected quarter. But in a tance by the four Queen Elizabeths. 

general action the capital ships already en- "Enemy light cruisers were sighted and 

gaged, warned of the presence of torpedoes shortly afterward the head of the German 

and protected in part by their watchful battle cruiser squadron, consisting of the 

destroyers, do not appear to be gravely men- new cruiser Hindenburg, the Seydlitz, Der- 



aced by tor- 
pedo attacks. 
Only one of 
the British 
dreadnoughts, 
the Marl- 
borough, ap- 
pears to have 
been torpe- 
doed, and she 
survived the 
shock. The 
British claim 
that two of 
the German 
ships were 
sunk by tor- 
pedoes, but 
this claim the 
Germans con- 
tradict. 

When the 
battle had 
been in pro- 
gress for al- 
most two 
hours, with 
the odds 
strongly m 
favor or the 
Germans, the 
British Grand 
Fleet came 
into action 
and the tide of 
battle turned. 

An account 
of this battle, the greatest in history, evi- 
dently written in collaboration by several 
British naval officers who were present during 
the action, summarizes very clearly the 
strategy employed and is made the more un- 
derstandable by the diagrams on page 159, 
which were prepared by the naval expert 
of the Scientific American: 

"First Phase, 3:45 p. m., May 31. — 
Beam's battle cruisers, consisting of the 
Lion, Princess Royal, Queen Mary, Tiger, 
Inflexible, Indomitable, Invincible, Indefati- 




Count Zeppelin, at the left, with Colonel Schmiedcke 



Professor He 



flinger, Lut- 
zow, Moltke, 
and possibly 
the Salamis. 

"Beatty at 
once began 
firing at a 
range of about 
20,000 yards 
( 1 2 miles), 
which short- 
ened to 16,000 
yards (9 
miles) as the 
fleets closed. 
The Germans 
could see the 
British dis- 
tinctly out- 
lined against 
the light-yel- 
low sky. The 
Germans , 
covered by a 
haze, could be 
very indis- 
tinctly made 
out b y u r 
gunners. 

"The Queen 
Elizabeths 
opened fire 
one after an- 
other, as they 
came within 
range. The 
German bat- 
and drew away 



tie cruisers turned to port 
to about 20,000 yards. 

"Second Phase, 4:40 p. m. — A destroyer 
screen then appeared beyond the German 
battle cruisers. The whole German High 
Seas Fleet could be seen approaching on the 
northeastern horizon in three divisions, com- 
ing to the support of their battle cruisers. 

"The German battle cruisers now turned 
right round 16 points and took station in front 
of the battleships of the High Fleet. 

"Beatty with his battle cruisers and sup- 



164 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



porting battleships, therefore, had before 
him the whole of the German battle fleet, 
and Jellicoe was still some distance away. 

"The opposing fleets were now moving 
parallel to one another in opposite directions, 



ble also were lost at the turning point, where, 
of course, the High Seas Fleet concentrated 
their fire. ' 

"A little earlier, as the German battle 
cruisers were turning, the Queen Elizabeths 



and but for a master maneuver on the part of had in similar manner concentrated their fire 
Beatty the British advance ships would on the turning point and destroyed a new 




British sailors, their cruiser sunk, are picked up by one of their 



have been cut ofF from Jellicoe's grand fleet. 
In order to avoid this and at the same time 
prepare the way so that Jellicoe might en- 
velop his adversary, Beatty immediately 
also turned right round 16 points so as to 
bring his ships parallel to the German battle 
cruisers and facing in the same direction. 

"As soon as he was round he increased to 
full speed to get ahead of the Germans and 
take up a tactical position in advance of their 
line. He was able to do this, owing to the 
superior speed of our battle cruisers. 

"Just before the turning point was reached, 
the Indefatigable sank, probably from striking 
a mine, and the Queen Mary and the Invinci- 



German battle cruiser, believed to be the 
Hindenburg. 

"Beatty had now got round and headed 
away with the loss of three ships, racing par- 
allel to the German battle cruisers. The 
Queen Elizabeths followed behind, engaging 
the main High Seas Fleet. 

SIX SHIPS ATTACKED THE WARSPITE 

"Third Phase, 5 p. m. — The Queen Eliza- 
beths now turned short to port 16 points in 
order to follow Beatty. The Warspite 
jammed her steering gear, failed toget around, 
and drew the fire of six of the enemy, who 
closed in upon her. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




England's strong man. Earl Kitchener, Secretary of State for Wai in the British cabinet, was drowned off the Orkney 
Islands at 2 A. M. on June 6th when the cruiser Hampshire foundered after being torpedoed or through striking a mine 



1 66 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



"I am not surprised that the Germans 
claim her as a loss, since on paper she ought 
to have been lost, but as a matter of fact, 
though repeatedly straddled by shellfire 
with the water boiling up all around her, she 
was not seriously hit and was able to sink 
one of her opponents. Her captain recovered 



■■ 



were suffered. They had the speed over 
their opponents by fully four knots, and were 
able to draw away from part of the long line 
of German battleships, which almost filled 
up the horizon. 

"At this time the Queen Elizabeths were 
steadily firing at the flashes of German guns 




Crater of a Zeppelin bomb in Paris 



control of the vessel, brought her around, and 
followed her consorts. 

"In the meantime the Barham Valiant and 
Malaya turned short so as to avoid the danger 
spot where the Queen Mary and the Invinci- 
ble had been lost, and for an hour, untd 
Jellicoe arrived, fought a delaying action 
against the High Seas Fleet. 

"The War spite joined them at about 
5:15 o'clock, and all four ships were so suc- 
cessfully maneuvered in order to upset the 
spotting corrections of their opponents that 
no hits of a seriouslv disabling character 



at a range which varied between 12,000 and 
15,000 yards, especially against those ships 
which were nearest them. \ he Germans were 
enveloped in a mist and only smoke and 
flashes were visible. 

" By 5 45 half of the High Seas Fleet had been 
left out of range, and the Queen Elizabeths 
were steaming fast to join hands with Jellicoe. 

"I must now return to Beatty's battle 
cruisers. They had succeeded in outflanking 
the German battle cruisers, which were, there- 
fore, obliged to turn a full right angle to star- 
board to avoid being headed. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



167 



"Heavy fighting was renewed between the 
opposing battle cruiser squadrons, during 
which the Derflinger was sunk; but toward 6 
o'clock the German fire slackened very con- 
siderably, showing that Beatty's battle 
cruisers and the Queen Elizabeths had in- 
flicted serious damage on their immediate 
opponents. 

jellicoe's fleet arrived 

"Fourth Phase, 6 p. m. — The Grand Fleet 
was now in sight and coming up fast in three 
directions 
(divisions?). 
The Queen 
Elizabeths al- 
tered their 
course four 
points to the 
starboard 
and drew in 
toward the 
enemy to al- 
low Jellicoe 
room to de- 
p 1 o y into 
line. 

1 ' The 
Grand Fleet 
was per- 
fectly ma- 
neuvered 
and the very 
difficult op- 
eration of 
deploying 
between the 
battle cruis- 
ers and the 
Queen Eliza- 
beths was 
perfectly 
timed. 

"Jellicoe 
came up, fell 
in behind 
Beatty's 
cruisers, and, followed by the damaged but 
still serviceable Queen Elizabeths, steamed 
right across the head of the German fleet. 

"The first of the ships to come into action 
were the Revenue and the Royal Oak with their 
15-inch guns, and the Agincourt, which fired 
from her seven turrets with the speed almost 
of a Maxim gun. 

"The whole British fleet had now become 




concentrated. They had been perfectly ma- 
neuvered, so as to 'cross the T'ofthe High 
Seas Fleet and, indeed, only decent light was 
necessary to complete their work of destroying 
the Germans in detail. The light did im- 
prove for a few minutes and the conditions 
were favorable to the British fleet, which was 
now in line approximately north and south 
across the head of the Germans. 

"During the few minutes of good light 
Jellicoe smashed up the first three German 
ships, but the mist came down, visibility sud- 
denly failed, 
and the de- 
feated High 
Seas Fleet 
was able to 
draw off in 
ragged di- 
visions. 

" Fifth 
Phase, 
Night. — 
The Ger- 
mans were 
followed by 
the British, 
who still had 
them envel- 
o p e d be- 
tween Jelli- 
coe on the 
west, Beatty 
on the north, 
and Evan 
Thomas 
with his 
three Queen 
Elizabeths on 
the south. 
The JJ'ar- 
spite had 
been sent 
back to her 
base. 

"During 
the night 
our torpedo-boat destroyers heavily attacked 
the German ships, and, although they lost 
seriously themselves, succeeded in sinking 
two of the enemy. 

"Coordination of the units of the fleet was 
practically impossible to keep up, and the 
Germans discovered by the rays of their 
searchlights the three Queen Elizabeths not 
more than 4,000 yards away. Unfortunately 



King and Queen pay last tribute to Kitchener 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



they were then able to escape between these 
battleships and Jellicoe, since we were not 
able to fire, as our own destroyers were in the 
way. 

"So ended the Jutland Battle, which was 
fought as had been planned and was very 
nearly a great success. It was spoiled by the 
unfavorable weather conditions, especially at 







Nomad (destroyer) 
Nestor (destroyer) 


*950 

*950 


*Not listed in 


last British 


register 






TOTALS 


Battle cruisers .... 
Armored cruisers 
Destroyers 


63,000 

41.7(H) 

9,400 



63,000 2.550 

41.700 2,163 

900 



Fourteen ships 114,100. 




The German Fleet whose officers ha\ 



■ often toasted "The Day." Meaning the day when it should dispute with Great Britain 
for the overlordship of the seas 



the critical moment, when the whole British 
fleet was concentrated and engaged in crush- 
ing the head of the German line. 

"It was an action on our part of big guns, 
except, of course, for the destroyer work, 
since at a very early stage our big ships 
ceased to feel any anxiety from the German 
destroyers. The German small craft were 
rounded up by their British opponents and 
soon ceased to count as an organized body." 

LOSSES ;iN NORTH SEA BATTLE OFF JUTLAND 
BRITISH 
Name Tonnage Personnel 

[Few Survivors] 
Queen Mary (battle cruiser) 27,000 1,000 



Name Tonnage Personnel 

[Of whom many were saved] 

Pommern (battleship) 13.200 729 

Wiesbaden (cruiser) 5.600 (estimated) 450 

Ftauenlob (cruiser) 2.715 264 

Elbing (cruiser) 5,000 (est imated) 450 

Six destroyers (reported) 6,000 (estimated) 600 

[REPORTED BY BRITISH. BUT NOT ADMITTED BY GERMANSl 

Weslfalen (dreadnought) 18,900 963 

Derflinger (battle cruiser) 26,600 (estimated) 1,200 

One submarine 1,000 (estimated) 40 

TOTALS 

(ADMITTED) 

Battleship 13,200 729 

Cruisers 13,315 1,161 

Destroyers 6.000 600 



Indefatigable (battle cruiser) 

Invincible (battle cruiser) 

Defense (armored cruiser) 

Warrior (armored cruiser) 

Black Prince (armored cruiser) . . 

Tipperary (destroyer) 

Turbulent (destroyer) 

Shark (destroyer) 

Sparrowhawk (destroyer) 

Ardent (destroyer) 



18,750 

17.250. 

14.600. 

13,550. 

13,550. 

1,850. 

1,850. 

950. 

950. 

950. 



Ten ships 32,515. 



704 
150 
150 
100 
100 
100 



[INCLUDING GERMAN LOSSES REPORTED BY THE BRITISH] 

Two battleships 32,100 1.692 

Four cruisers 39.915 2,364 

Six destroyers 6.000 600 

One submarine 1.000 40 



Thirteen ships 79,015 4,696 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



169 



The heavy loss of life in this battle is a mat- 
ter that deserves attention. In the subjoined 
table it will be noticed that practically the 
entire personnel of many British ships is re- 
ported as lost, while on the German ships 
many were saved. This is partly due to the 
fact that the British ships went down during 
action, whereas many of the German ships, 



tween decks there are pneumatic rafts, but 
there is scant time to put on a belt or launch a 
raft when the steel vessel loaded with guns 
and armor begins to go down. Practically 
every man goes down with the ship, and this 
fact was demonstrated at the Battle of 
Jutland. 

Both the British and the Germans con- 



-JL-tk* 





The Br 



From left to right, the KingGeorge, Thunderer, Monarch and Conqueror 



when crippled, were able to pull out of the 
zone of fire and save many of their people. 
Some were even in friendly home waters be- 
fore actually going down. In modern naval 
warfare the loss on a sunken vessel is apt to be 
complete. One reason for this is that a ship 
seldom pulls out of action until she is actually 
sinking. Their structure is so complicated 
that her commander may not know that she is 
about to sink until she is just on the verge of 
making the plunge. As long as she is afloat at 
all she is a factor in the battle. A single 
happily placed shot from a sinking ship might 
be the blow to turn the tide of battle and to 
settle the destinies of the nations at war. As 
long as a ship floats it fights, its men remain in 
the turrets, the fire rooms, and at the guns — 
all hard places to get out of when the vessel 
begins to careen. She can carry no boats or 
rafts on her deck for the blast of the guns 
would blow them to flinders. The men in 
action are provided with life belts, and be- 



cealed for some time the extent of their 
losses. Admiral Jellicoe's formal report, 
dated July 6th, expressly declares it inex- 
pedient to make the loss of the personnel and 
the extent of the damage inflicted public. 
The following table, however, agrees with the 
official statement of losses, except the loss of 
life, which is estimated. The German losses 
claimed by the British, but denied by the 
Germans, are included in a separate table. 

Both sides earnestly claimed the victorv. 
The Germans insisted that the weight of 
British vessels sunk and the toll of death 
paid in Jellicoe's fleet far exceeded th elosses 
of their own; the British denied heavier losses 
and pointed out that their enemies were 
forced to seek the shelter of their naval 
bases while Jellicoe's ships continued their 
ceaseless patrol of the North Sea. There 
was justification for both claims. But the 
real, vital, essential point is that after the 
engagement the British naval power was still 



i 7 o THE NATIONS AT WAR 

overwhelm- 
ing, its con- 
trol of the 
seas still un- 
shattered, 
and its 
blockade of 
German 
ports so un- 
relenting as 
to arouse 
bitter com- 
plaints from 
the block- 
aded nation 
which de- 
nounced the 
British for 
trying to 
starve the 
women and 
children of 
an entire 
nation. 

There was 
of course no justification for this complaint. South for quinine. But sp 
The blockade is a legitimate weapon of war, was exerted to prevent that 
despite the fact that it necessarily causes suf- being shipped over the border 




The interior of a submarine, showing the pilot's wh 



fering and 
privation to 
non combat- 
ants. In no 
war has the 
blockade 
been so mer- 
cilessly ap- 
plied as in 
ourownCivil 
War, when 
the South 
was literally 
starved into 
subjection. 
The appeals 
made by the 
Germans for 
milk for their 
babies in this 
war were 
par all e 1 ed 
then by the 
cry of the 
fever- ridden 
ecial vigilance 
medicine from 




Copyright by Undenvnod &: I'ndenvood 

German merchant submarine Deutschland lying in Chesapeake Bay before returning across the Atlantic. In spite of 
the vigilance of English patrols the Deutschland has made two trips to the United States, landing once at Baltimore and 
once at New London 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



171 




C"i'\n\Jit by Unilcrwood S: t'mlenvood 



H. M. S. Queen Elizabeth, perhaps the most famous warship in the world, bombatding Cape Helles (Gallipoli) to cover the 
landing of the Allied forces. She was the first battleship to carry fifteen-inch guns 



CHRONOLOGY OF NAVAL EVENTS TO AUGUST 1, 1916 



(Naval occurrences connected with the British expedition to 
the Dardanelles will he found enumerated in the chronology 
attached to Chapter V.) 

August 6. British cruiser Amphion sunk by a mine. First 
loss of the war to the British navy. 

August q. German ships Breslau and Goeben enter the Dar- 
danelles. 



August 17. 

August 21. 

August 24. 

August 27. 
Grosse, 

August 28. 

September 22. 



French sink German cruiser in Adriatic. 
French and British ships bombard Cattaro. 
Japanese bombard Tsing-Tau. 
British ship Highflyer sinks Kaiser Wilhelm tier 



Battle off Heligoland. 

Cressy, Aboukir, and Hogue sunk by German 
submarine. 

October 16. British cruiser Hazeke sunk by German submarine 
(7-9. 

October 17. British squadron, led by the Undaunted, sinks four 
German destroyers off the Dutch coast. British fleet bom- 
bards German forces at Nieuport. 

October 19. British and Japanese vessels begin attack on 
German colony at Tsing-Tau. Bombardment of Cattaro 
begun by French navy. 

October 25. Japanese sink the German cruiser Aeolus off 
Honolulu. 



October 29. German raider Emden enters Penang harbor and 
sinks Russian cruiser Jempchug. 

October ;o. Russian and Turkish fleets in battle in the Black 
Sea. British cruiser Hermes sunk off Dover. 

November I. German squadron under Admiral von Spec 
defeats British squadron under Rear-Admiral Cradock off 
Coronel, Chili. 

November 3. British cruiser Minerva bombards Akabah, 
Arabia, and sailors occupy the town. 

November 10. Australian cruiser Sydney sinks the Emden, 
which had destroyed more than $5,000,000 worth of British 
ships. 

November 14. First news of disabling of the British supcr- 
dreadnaught Audacious on October 27th oft the Irish Coast. 
Vessel subsequently restored to service. 

November 17. Russian Black Sea fleet attacks Trebizond. 
German squadron bombards Libau. 

November 26. British battleship Bulwark blown up in the 
Thames. Explosion probably accidental. 

Decembers. British squadron under Vice-Admiral Sturdee 
defeats German squadron under Admiral von Spee off the 
Falkland Islands. 

December 10. German submarine raid on Dover repulsed by 
the forts. 



172 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



December 14. British submarine S-i I diving under five 
rows of mines sinks Turkish battleship Messudieh in the 
Dardanelles. 
December 16. German warship shells the British coast 
towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby; about 
120 persons killed and 550 wounded. 
December 22. Allied fleets shell German positions along the 

Belgian coasts. 
December 26. British make naval and air attack on German 

fleet without important results. 
January 1. British battleship Formidable torpedoed and 

sunk in English Channel; six hundred men lost. 
January 24. British squadron under Vice-Admiral Beatty 
defeats German squadron in North Sea. German battle 
cruiser Blucher sunk, two other German battle cruisers 
damaged. British battle cruisers Lion and Tiger damaged. 
February S. Russian destroyers sink more than fifty enemy 

sailing vessels in the Black Sea. 
February 18. German proclamation declaring the waters 
around Great Britain and Ireland a war zone which neutral 
ships may enter at their own risk takes effect. United 
States protests against the decree; 205 merchant craft and 
six neutral were sunk under the decree before August 1st, 
with a loss of 63 lives including two Americans. 
February' 19. Tension between the United States and Great 
Britain because of use of American flag on Lusitania and 
other ships becomes acute. 
April 6. German submarine caught in a steel net off Dover. 
First recorded success of this method of meeting submarine 
peril. 
April 7. German converted cruiser Prinz Eilel Friederich 
enters Hampton Roads and is interned until the end of the 
war. 
April 15. Table published in London claims that the Allies 
have sunk, captured, or detained 543 ships belonging to 
Germany and her Allies, while 265 ships belonging to the 
Allies have been taken or destroyed by the Teutons. 
April 26. French cruiser Leon Gambetta torpedoed in the 

Strait of Otranto, 552 men lost. 
May 1. Cunarder Lusitania sails from New York. German 
Embassy at Washington publishes an advertisement stat- 
ing that "travelers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great 
Britain or her Allies do so at their own great risk." 
May 7. Lusitania is sunk ten miles off the Old Head of 
Kinsale, Ireland, by torpedoes from a German submarine. 
1)154, including many women and children, are drowned or 
killed by the explosion. 
May 17. The British admiralty announces that 460,628 tons 
of British shipping, other than warships, have been sunk or 
captured by the German navy since the beginning of the 
war, with 1,556 persons killed; that the German tonnage 
sunk or captured is 314,465 with no lives lost. 
June 15. An official announcement states the total loss in 
the British navy up to May 31st was 13,547 officers and men. 
Up to August 1, 1915, according to Senate Document 3 of 
the Sixty-fourth Congress, the allied navies had lost a total of 
71 warships, with a tonnage of 326,855. Of these Great 
Britain had lost 42 sliips of 254,494 tons — 8 battleships, 3 
armored cruisers, 4 protected cruisers, 4 light cruisers, and 24 
smaller craft: France, 12 ships of 28,027 tons; Russia, 6 ships 
of 21,775 tons; Japan, 7 ships of 4,801 tons; and Italy, 4 ships 
of 17,758 tons. Germany, Austria, and Turkey had lost 89 
ships, with a tonnage of 262,791. Of these Germany had lost 
69 ships of 283,904 tons — 1 battle cruiser, 5 armored cruisers, 
10 protected cruisers, 3 light cruisers, and 50 smaller and 
auxiliary craft; Austria, 7 ships of 7,397 tons, and Turkey 13 
ships of 16,490 tons. 

Up to the same date German submarines sank 205 merchant 
craft belonging to the Allies, and 59 neutrals with a total 
sacrifice of 1,641 non-combatant lives. 

In the second year of the war official records in regard to the 
losses of submarines and auxiliary cruisers are incomplete, 
and transports are not scheduled as warships. In this year 



the Allies lost 41 ships with a tonnage of 202,600, and the 

Central Empires 33 ships, with a tonnage of 125,120. Great 

Britain's loss was 34 ships — 2 battleships, 3 battle cruisers, 

3 armored cruisers, 7 protected cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 

17 smaller and auxiliary craft, with a total of 195,900 tons. 

Germanv's loss was 26 ships — 4 battleships, 1 Sattle cruiser, 

6 protected cruisers, and 15 smaller craft and auxiliaries, with a 

total of 114,620 tons. 

August 8. German squadron repulsed while attempting to 
menace Riga. Petrograd reports that nine battleships and 
twelve cruisers were driven oft. 

November 17. Twenty-five British submarines pass North 
Sea into the Baltic. 

December 30. Austrian squadrons defeated with the loss of 
two destroyers by Italian ships off Durazzo, Albania. 

January 9. Loss of British battleship King Edward I'll by 
contact with mine is announced. 

February 1. German prize crew bring in British steamer 
Appam to Hampton Roads, with passengers and crews of 
six other British merchantmen captured by the auxiliary 
cruiser Motve or Roon, ship declared British prize by United 
States Court in July, 1916. 

February 13. French Government admits the loss of the 
cruiser Admiral Charner by submarine off the Syrian coast. 

February 27. French transport Provence sunk by submarine 
in Mediterranean with a loss of 3,100 marines and troops. 

February 27. British steamer Maloja, en route for India, 
strikes mine near Dover and loses more than 150 lives in 
passengers and crew. 

March 5. German Admiralty announces the safe arrival at 
Wilhelmshaven of auxiliary cruiser Mbwe after having de- 
stroyed or captured fifteen merchant craft of the Allies. 

March 24. British Channel steamer Sussex torpedoed by 
German submarine with the death of more than fifty pas- 
sengers. 

April 25. German battle cruiser squadron with submarines 
and Zeppelins attack Lowestoft and Yarmouth, northeast of 
London. This is supposed to be in conjunction with the 
Sinn-Fein revolt in Dublin and the landing of Sir Roger 
Casement on the Irish coast. 

April 27. British battleship Russell sunk by mine in the 
Mediterranean. 

May 31. British and German naval engagement off the coast 
of Denmark, North Sea. British admit the loss of six large 
cruisers and eight destroyers, the Germans a battleship, 
a battle cruiser, four light cruisers, and five destroyers; 
9,500 lives are lost. 

June 5. British cruiser Hampshire sunk by a mine off the 
Orkney Islands on her way to Russia. Lord Kitchener, 
Secretary for War, and his staff" are lost, together with all 
except twelve of the crew. 

Junec). Italian Admiralty announces that the transport 
Principe Umberto has been sunk with large loss of life by a 
submarine in the Adriatic. 

July 6. Turkish Midullu, formerly German cruiser Breslau, 
sinks Russian transport by use of Russian flag. 

July 9. German merchant submarine Deulschland arrives at 
Baltimore after unique transatlantic voyage. 

July 10. Turkish Midullu and Sultan Selim, the latter form- 
erly German cruiser Goeben, sink four Russian transports 
and bombard Caucasus coast. 

July 12. German submarine shells Seaham Harbor, on Eng- 
lish east coast. 

July 15. Italian destroyer Impetuoso sunk by Austrian sub- 
marine in the Adriatic. 
July 22. German flotilla of torpedo-boat destroyers escape 
after running fight with British patrols off Holland and 
attempt to raid the Thames mouth. Both sides claim hits. 
During the second year of the war German and Austrian 
submarines sunk 518 merchant craft of which 72 were neutral. 
The lives of 983 non-combatants were sacrificed. 



174 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




CHAPTER VI 



DEADLOCK IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM THE HARDSHIPS OF THE TRENCHES 

A CHRISTMAS TRUCE BATTLE OF NEUVE CHAPELLE THE LABYRINTH 

ASPHYXIATING GAS AND LIQUID FIRE YPRES AND THE RIVER YSER 




utterly inconclusive 



ROBABLY never in 
the history of man- 
kind has more of hu- 
man agony, human 
sacrifice, cold brutal- 
ity, and warm sym- 
pathy been com- 
pressed into so small 
a space of time and 
place as in the year 
191 5 and in that part 
of France and Belgium 
in which the warring 
armies strove for the 
mastery. 

It was a year of con- 
stant battling with 

results. Men fell by 



the tens of thousands to gain a score of yards 
on the enemy's lines. The capture of a 
trench was proclaimed as a magnificent vic- 
tory, though the defenders had but retreated 
to another work twenty-five yards in its rear. 
Now one belligerent and then the other as- 
sumed the offensive, but all that was sought 
was merely to pierce the lines of the foe. 
The Germans had about abandoned their 
hope of reaching Paris, and the French cry, 
"On to Berlin," was stilled. The world as a 
whole was beginning to speak of the great war 
as a draw. 

Throughout the bitter months of the 
winter of 191 5 the lines of the belligerents 
extended for five hundred miles from tin- 
British Channel to the Vosges Mountains, 
seldom more than two hundred yards apart, 
often hardly half that. By the map it was 
500 miles, but the actual extent of the 
trenches was many times as much. At one 
point which came to be known as the Laby- 
rinth, and at which later in the year a bloody 
battle was fought, there were more than 200 
miles of trenches between two points sepa- 



rated only by twelve miles in a direct line. 
Of this entire 500 miles of battle front fifty 
were held bv the Belgians and the British, 
the remainder by the French. But the sec- 
tion held by the two former nations was that 
in which was the most savage fighting during 
the opening months of 191 5 and in which 
natural conditions made the daily life of the 
soldiers most difficult to bear. Sir John 
French in his official report said of the suffer- 
ings of the men in Flanders, "The men have 
been called upon to stand for many hours 
together almost up to their waists in bitterly 
cold water only separated by one or two hun- 
dred yards from a most vigilant enemy." 
But that is the passionless and restrained 
description of trench life by a great com- 
mander. This extract from the description 
given in a letter from one of the soldiers who 
had suffered months of that existence gives a 
more graphic picture of what it really meant: 

"Take a cold, damp cellar and flood it 
with some three to six inches of almost 
ice-cold mud; at a height of five feet from 
the floor stretch a tangle of wires; turn an 
electric current into the wires and let the 
voltage be so heavy that every wire will be as 
deadly as a third rail. 

"Now blow out the light, crawl to the 
middle of the floor in the darkness, and stand 
erect, trusting to blind luck that your head 
won't touch the wire. These charged wires, 
in the darkness, represent the invisible deadly 
trails of the bullets that fly over your head in 
the trenches. 

"Of course, if you want to be safe in the 
cellar you can keep your head down, but if you 
did that in the trenches you would be neglect- 
ing your duty. It is your duty, for instance, 
to fire eight bullets an hour if on guard. 
Watchful eyes of officers will discover whether 
you are shooting into the air or whether you 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Behind the French lines in the Vosges. The French "poilu" is a genius at 
making himself comfortable in the open air. This photograph shows the camp on 
wash day 

are firing with your aim fixed on the enemy's 
trenches, and a good sentinel is supposed to 
raise his head above the trench every ten 
minutes to see what is going on outside." 

This writer, Phil Rader by name, a young 
San Franciscan who had enlisted in the 
French Foreign Legion, was prolific of graphic 
sketches of life in the trenches. His descrip- 
tion of a Christmas 
truce and its abrupt 
end throws a bright 
light on the psychology 
of war: 



"For twenty days 
we had faced that strip 
of land, forty-five feet 
wide, between our 
trench and that of the 
Germans, that terrible 
No Man's Land, dotted 
with dead bodies, criss- 
crossed by tangled 
masses of barbed wire. 
That little strip of land 
was as wide and as 
deep and as full of 
death as the Atlantic 
Ocean; as uncrossable 
as the spaces between 
stars; as terrible as 
human hate. And the 



sunshine of the bright 
Christmas morning fell on 
it as brightly as if it were 
a lover's lane or the aisle in 
some grand cathedral. 

"I don't know how the 
truce began in other 
trenches, but in our hole 
Nadeem began it— Nadeem, 
a Turk, who believes that 
Mohammed and not Christ 
was the Prophet of God. 
The sunshine of the morn- 
ing seemed to get into 
Nadeem's blood. He was 
only an enthusiastic boy, 
always childishly happy, 
and when we noticed, at 
the regular morning shoot- 
ing hour, that the German 
trenches were silent Nadeem 
began to make a joke of it. 
He drew a target on a board, 
fastened it on a pole, and stuck it above the 
trench, shouting to the Germans: 
'"See how well you can shoot.' 
"Within a minute the target had been 
bulls'-eyed. Nadeem pulled it down, pasted 
little bits of white paper where shots had 
struck, and held it up again so that the Ger- 
mans could see their score. In doing so, 
Nadeem's head appeared above the trench, 




Borrowed from the Dark Ages. An adaptation of the old cross-bow. 
pounds of sudden death 30 or 40 yards 



hurl a few 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



177 



and we heard him talking 
across the No Man's Land. 
Thoughtlessly I raised my 
head, too. Other men did 
the same. We saw hundreds 
of German heads appearing. 
Shouts filled the air. What 
miracle had happened? 
Men laughed and cheered. 
There was Christmas light 
in our eyes and I know 
there were Christmas tears 
in mine. 

"There were smiles, 
smiles, smiles, where in days 
before there had been only 
rifle-barrels. The terror of 
No Man's Land fell away. 
The sounds of happy voices 
filled the air. We were all 
unhumanly happy for that 
one glorious instant — Eng- 
lish, Portuguese, Americans, 
and even Nadeem, the Turk 
we had been, cavemen as we were, the awful- 
ness of war had not filled the corners of our 
hearts where love and Christmas live. I think 
Nadeem was first to sense what had happened. 
He suddenly jumped out of the trench and 
began waving his hands and cheering. The 
hatred of war had been suddenly withdrawn 
and it left a vacuum in which we human beings 




Clothes must he 
Legion did before tak 
soldier has a horror of 

-and savages as 




■ clean when going into battle. The last thing the Foreign 
ing its post was to put on clean underclothes and shirts. Every 
tetanus 

rushed into contact with each other. You 
felt their handshakes — double handshakes, 
with both hands — in your heart. 

"Nadeem couldn't measure human nature 
unerringly. He had been the first to feel 
the holiday spirit of Christmas Day, but, on 
this day after Christmas, he failed to sense 
the grimness of war that had fallen over the 
trenches during the night. Early in the 
morning he jumped out 
of the trench and began 
waving his hands again. 
John Street, an Ameri- 
can, who had been an 
evangelist in St. Louis, 
jumped out with him, 
and began to shout a 
morning greeting to a 
German he had made 
friends with the day 
before. 

"There was a sudden 
rattle of rifle-fire and 
Street fell dead, with a 
bullet through his head. 
The sun was shining 
down again on a world 
gone mad." 



Shooting death from a gas pipe. Where the hostile trenches are only a few yards apart, 
grenades are thrown back and forth by hand 



Though the French 
had lost heavily in the 
fighting of the fall 
months, they had so far 



[ 7 8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



recuperated by January as to begin efforts 
all along their lines to accomplish what was 
destined to be their one compelling purpose 
for the next eighteen months, namely, to 
break the German line and force the invaders 
out of France. Their first serious attack 
was made in the neighborhood of Soissons. 
There the elements combined for their un- 
doing. At the very crucial moment heavy 




Their light has gone out forever. Blinded French soldiers 

rains caused a flood which washed away 
bridges upon which the French depended for 
their supplies. The Germans rushed rein- 
forcements to that point and the French were 
forced back with heavy loss, even sacrificing 
some of the territory that had been gained in 
the Battle of the Aisne. But the retreat was 
soon checked, and for nearly a month the 
armies at that point contented themselves 
with holding each other rigidly to the line of 
their trenches. 



the line which extended between Rheims and 
the Argonne. Both the French and the 
Germans made efforts to break their enemy's 
front at various points in Champagne. The 
Germans were trying to force the Allies to 
weaken their line in Flanders in order that 
by a sudden thrust the soldiers of the Kaiser 
might get around French's left flank and cut 
him off from the sea. In this they failed 
utterly, General Joffre 
proving quite capable of 
taking care of his centre 
without depleting the left 
flank. But Joffre in his 
turn attacked savagely in 
the neighborhood of Arras, 
at Lens, and about La 
Bassee. The purposes of 
the French attack here were 
twofold. Success would 
have given them control 
of important railroad com- 
munications held by the 
Germans and would fur- 
thermore have driven the 
enemy from the highly im- 
portant mining district sur- 
rounding Lens from which 
they were drawing huge 
supplies of coal. The fight- 
ing in this neighborhood 
lasted more than a month, 
and in it not less than 500,000 
men were involved. But it 
was at best indecisive. 
££jg Beginning the last of Jan- 
uary, March found the lines 
of the enemies occupying 
practically the same relative 
positions. But during this 
period not merely were 
, , hundreds of thousands of 

;scorted nv a nurse r • 1 

men put out or action, but 

the French villages, so 
beautiful and contented in times of peace, 
were reduced to mere heaps of ruins. 

Much of the country is a level plain trav- 
ersed by sluggish rivers. A watcher in the 
days before the war could see all about him 
closely built little French villages, separated 
one from the other by ten to fifteen miles of 
smiling countryside. The French farmer in 
the main does not live on his farm as do the 
Americans. As a result one sees but few 
farmhouses, but groups of villages sur- 



For a time activity shifted to that part of rounded by miles of fertile country. But by 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



l 79 




March of 191 5 the villages 
were smouldering heaps 
of ruined masonry and 
the fields were 
scarred in every 
direction b 
trenches, and 
plentifully dot- 
ted with the 
crosses that 
mark the rest- 
ing places of 
the quiet dead. 
Early in 
March the most 
important battle of 
the year was fought 
in and about the litt 
French town of Neuve 
Chapelle by the British forces. 
The battle raged for three days, 
beginning on the tenth, and in it the British 
lost 12,811 men of whom nearly 2,500 were 
killed. The German losses were heavier, 
and as the result of the battle very material 
gains were made by the British on that part 
of the battleline. The main point of attack 
was the closely built stone village which 
was held by the Germans who, in 
the ponderous farmhouses 
and behind the stone walls 
of the orchard which 
flanked thevillageon 
either side, had es 
tabhshed machine 
guns and heavy 
batteries of 
field artillery. 
The assailants 
were handi- 
capped from 
the outset by 
a heavy mist 
which per- 
sisted through- 
out the three 
days of fighting. 
Sir Douglas Haig 
and Sir Horace 
Smith-Dorrien, two 
British leaders des- 
tined to win great rep- ^ 
utations during the course 
of the war, led the attack. 
For the first time in serious 
fighting on this section of the 




battleline thepicturesque East 
Indian troops of Great 
Britain were brought 
into action and con- 
ducted them- 
selves with great 
gallantry. In 
numbers en- 
gaged and in 
losses the bat- 
tle of Neuve 
Chapelle 
closely resem- 
d 1 e d that of 
Waterloo. But 
Waterloo was the 
turning point of a war 
— Neuve Chapelle only 
an incident in an intermin- 
. able deadlock. 

As was the case with so much of 
thefightingin France, thisattackwasmadenot 
so much because of any special strategic value 
attaching to the ground immediately fought 
for, but for its effect on the campaign in the 
East. In eastern Prussia at this moment 
the Russians were just beginning to recover 
from the crushing blow delivered by 
Von Hindenburg at the Masurian 
Lakes and had themselves 
again resumed the offen- 
sive. Accordingly the 
French and the Brit- 
ish on the western 
battleline were at- 
tacking at every 
point in order 
that they might 
keep the Ger- 
mans in their 
front so busily 
engaged that 
there would be 
no possibility 
o f d e t a c h 1 n g 
forces to be 
sent to meet the 
Russian o n- 
I aught. Hence 
the battle at Neuve 
Chapelle and the at- 
tacks that were being 
■M made almost simultane- 
ously by the French troops 
at Arras and in the Cham- 
pagne country. 



:>f a faithful fricnJ 



l8o 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Uhlan patrol ambushed by English machine gun 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



By the second year of the war the su- 
preme importance of the artillery had become 
evident, and the Teutonic allies were bitterly 
complaining that the enormous supply of 
ammunition from the United States was the 
one thing that delayed their certain victory. 

It was near Neuve Chapelle that the forces 
of the Allies began first to see evidences of the 
care with which the Germans had prepared for 
a long sojourn in France and had constructed 



green boughs and shrubbery so that they 
might escape the attention of the enemy's 
aeroplanes. In these places the men took 
refuge when not actually engaged on duty in 
the open trench. They were well furnished, 
usually with furniture made by the men, but 
often with more luxurious fittings secured by 
raiding neighboring chateaux of which there 
were many in that country. Many had 
pianos, and not a few were decorated with 




in the American hospital at Saignton. England 



their trenches not merely for safety, but with 
an eye to getting at least a small amount of 
comfort out of the situation. Miles of the 
trenches, especially in swampy regions, were 
lined with concrete. The one difficulty about 
this, as some of the captives remarked, was 
that while the water could not seep in from the 
adjacent swampy soil, when it rained in there 
was no way of getting it out. After a while 
they constructed hand pumps, and whole com- 
panies would be employed in baling out the 
trenches as sailors desperately man the pumps 
on a sinking ship. 

Some of the trenches had two stories, and 
attached to some were rest houses built of 
concrete wholly underground, proof against 
falling shells and concealed on the surface by 



good pictures which formed part of the army's 
loot. 

The country called the Champagne country 
in which occurred much of the desultory fight- 
ing of the first half of 191 5, which was so 
largely without definite result, is a vast plain, 
undulating somewhat like what we call rolling 
prairies and with scarcely a hill higher than 
200 feet. The official "British observer," 
describing the character of the fighting done 
in this section, says of it: 

"Every day an attack is made on a trench, 
on the edge of one of the little woods or to 
gain ground in one of them; every day the 
ground gained has to be transformed so as to 
give protection to its new occupants and 
means of access to their supports; every 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



night, and on many days, the enemy's counter- stillness of what one sees is in marked con- 
attacks have to be repulsed. trast to the turmoil of shells passing overhead. 
"Each attack has to be prepared by a The only movement is the cloud of smoke and 
violent and accurate artillery fire; it may be earth that marks the burst of a shell. Here 
said that a trench has to be morally captured r.nd there long white lines are visible, when a 
by gun fire before it can be actually seized by trench has brought the chalky subsoil up to 

the top, but the number of 
^,- — - trenches seen is very small 

compared to the number 
that exists, for one cannot 
see into the valleys, and the 
top of the ground is an un- 
healthy place to choose for 
seating a trench. The 
woods are pointed out, with 
the names given them by the 
soldiers, but it needs field- 
glasses to see the few stumps 
that remain in those where 
the artillery has done its 
work. And then a tele- 
phone message arrives, say- 
ing that the enemy are 
threatening a counter- 
attack at a certain point, 
and three minutes later there 
is a redoubled whistling 
of shells. At first one can- 
not see the result of this 
fire — the guns are searching 
the low ground where the 
enemy's reserves are pre- 
paring for the movement 
but a little later the ground 
in front of the threatened 
trench becomes alive with 
shell bursts, for the search- 
ing has given place to the 
building up of a wall of fire 
through which it is impos- 
sible for the foe to pass 
without enormous loss." 

Through much of the 
spring a great battle raged 
incessantly in that part of 
the works in the neighbor- 
the infantry. Once in the new trench, the hood of Neuville and Ecurie just north of 
men have to work with their intrenching Arras, called the Labyrinth. This network 
tools, without exposing themselves, and wait of trenches built by the Germans seemed 
for a counter-attack, doing what damage to be absolutely impregnable. Eor intricacy, 




Hot broth for the wounded soldiers. A British Red Cross kitchen ambulance issuing 
strengthening drinks to men who are on their way to the base hospitals 



they can to the enemy with hand grenades 
and machine guns. Thus the amount of rifle 
fire is very small; it is a war of explosives and 
bayonets. 

"Looking at the battle at a distance of 
about 2,000 yards from the enemy's line, the 



skill of design, and defensive power the works 
were without parallel in the history of war. 
While the French army had been menacing 
it for months the determined attack by which 
this veritable hornet's nest was cleared of its 
defenders began in the early part of May, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



183 



and lasted until the middle of June. Like 
the Battleof Ypres, theBattleofthe Labyrinth 
was now lost, then won, then lost again by 
the defenders. Its story would make a vol- 
ume in itself and is hardly to be told with 



"I always had a fairly accurate sense of di- 
rection; but, standing in many places in this 
giant battlefield, it was impossible for me to 
say where were the Germans and where the 
French, so completely was I turned around 




The western front, early summer, 1916. Spring in the western theatre of war again, as was the case in 191;, found the 
initiative in the hands of the Germans. They desired, first, to capture the French position of Verdun, which controls the line of 
the Meuse River. The French, however, resolutely refused to he driven back and, in the first weeks after the launching of the 
great German attack at Verdun, managed to make good their ground. To the hammering of the most powerful heavy artillery 
ever brought into action, and the persistent assaults of the machine-like German infantry the French with equal persistence op- 
posed their own artillery and veteran troops. The French watchword was "They Shall Not Pass," and they made it good 

complete accuracy until the war is ended, on account of the constant zigzag of the trench 

An American journalist present during the lines. Sometimes, when I was positive that a 

battle, says of the complicated character of furious cannonade coming from a certain 

the positions: position was German, it turned out to be 



1 8 4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



French. At other times, when I thought I 
was safely going in the direction of the 
French, I was hauled back by officers who 
told me I was heading directly into the Ger- 
man line of fire. I sometimes felt that the 
German lines were on three sides, and often I 
was quite correct. On the other hand, the 
French lines often almost completely sur- 
rounded the German positions. 

"One could not tell from the nearness of the 
artillery fire whether it was from friend or foe. 
Artillery makes three different noises: first, 




the sharp report followed by detonations like 
thunder, when the shell first leayes the gun; 
second, the rushing sound of the shell passing 
high overhead; third, the shrill whistle, fol- 
lowed by the crash when it finally explodes. 
In the Labyrinth the detonations which 
usually indicated the French fire might be 
from the German batteries stationed quite 
near us, but where they could not get the 
range on us, and firing at a section of the 
French lines some miles away. I finally de- 
termined that when a battery fired fast it was 
French; for the German fire is becoming more 
intermittent every day." 

During the month that the fighting was in 
progress in Champagne more than half a 
million men were in action on either side. 



Hardly had the echoes of this conflict died 
away when the Germans in their turn 
launched their great offensive in the west in 
the second battle of Ypres. They struck 
that section of the British line which was held 
bv the Canadians linked up with the French. 
It was here that the men from Great Britain's 
most important American colony made their 
reputation as possibly the best fighters in 
the British Army. 1 hey were all new hands. 
War had never come to that fortunate coun- 
trv which lies north of the United States, 
beyond a border 
which is maintained 
without forts, with- 
out garrisons, with- 
out even men-of-war 
on the Great Lakes. 
After a scant six 
months of training 
in the great camps 
around London 
these Colonials took 
the field and sus 
rained the attacks of 
the German forces 
like veterans. They 
had, furthermore, to 
sustain for the first 
time two new and 
terrifying engines of 
warfare — the as- 
phyxiating gas and 
the curtain of fire. 

The use of a suffo- 
cating gas in warfare 
in-et had been anticipated 

for years by writers 
speculating on the new horrors which what we 
call civilization would bring to modern war. 
Novelists had long been describing it as a 
weapon which could not be met, and which 
would therefore make war impossible because 
of its very deadliness. The Chinese, who 
have had a habit of preceding us in many in- 
ventions, applied its principle in a small way 
with the bombs they called "Stink Pots." 
But the Germans first reduced the use of gas 
to something like a science, and the British, 
after a very brief period of heated denuncia- 
tion of the device as inhuman and barbaric, 
hastily adopted it for their own use. The 
gas, which is a product of chlorine, is of very 
heavy specific gravity, forming, when liber- 
ated from the receptacles in which it is carried 
to the front, a sort of greenish-yellow vapor 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



185 



which lies close to the ground. As there is 
no means of propelling it artificially, except 
when it is used in exploding shells, it can only 
be used when there is a favorable wind which 
will carry it toward the enemy's trenches. 
Given such a wind and reasonable good for- 
tune it forms a most serviceable curtain for 
the advance of troops. For the gas not only 
is dense enough to conceal the lines advancing 
behind it, but if carried into a trench will 
almost instantly put its defenders out of 
action. Once inhaled it causes the most 
frightful agony, and 
if death does not 
occur to the victim 
it leaves him crippled 
and subject to all 
sorts of bodily dis- 
tress in after life. 
Very quickly, how- 
ever, upon the ap- 
pearance of chlorine 
gas as a factor in war 
inventors produced 
a respirator which 
serves as an almost 
complete defence. 
It has the appear- 
ance of a cloth hood 
pierced for the sol- 
dier's eyes, but con- 
taining in the 
mouthpiece fabrics 
prepared chemically 
which take from the 
gas all its deadly 
qualities as the sol- 
dier breathes. The 
men thus accoutred 
ghastly appearance with no human features 
apparent save two huge and staring goggle 
eyes. They look not unlike the apparitions 
which, under the title of the Ku Klux Klan, 
in the days of Reconstruction were used to 
terrify the negroes of the South into sub- 
jection. 

The chief difficulty involved in the use of 
the curtain of gas was that a shift in the wind 
might turn it back upon the troops following 
it and destroy them. The curtain of fire, 
though available only to clear a way for 
twenty or thirty feet, was not subject at least 
to this disadvantage. Projected for that dis- 
tance or more from tubes held in the hands of 
a line of advancing soldiers, this fiery scourge 
could neither be evaded nor sustained. 



An English correspondent who witnessed 
at Ypres the effect of this new and untried 
weapon upon soldiers who not only had not 
encountered it before, but who had never 
even heard of it as a possibility, gives this 
account of its effect upon these troops: 

"The strong northeast wind, which was 
blowing from the enemy's lines across the 
French trenches, became charged with a 
sickening, suffocating odor which was recog- 
nized as proceeding from some form of poi- 




Copyright by International New 

Wreckage at Namur — hitherto considered practically impregnable 



are of a weird and 



sonous gas. The smoke moved like a vivid 
green wall some four feet in height for several 
hundred yards, extending to within 200 yards 
of the extreme left of our lines. Gradually 
it rose higher and obscured the view from the 
level. 

"Soon strange cries were heard, and 
through the green mist, now growing thinner 
and patchy, there came a mass of dazed, 
reeling men who fell as they passed through 
our ranks. The greater number were un- 
wounded, but they bore upon their faces the 
marks of agony. 

"The retiring men were among the first 
soldiers of the world whose sang-froid and 
courage have been proverbial throughout the 
war. All were reeling through us and round 
us like drunken men." 



1 86 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



The suffering endured by the victims of 
these two new military weapons caused bitter 
protest at the time and led to an agitation, 
which will probably survive the war, for the 
adoption of an international agreement after 
the war shall be over to prohibit both as 



end it all came to nothing. By this time the 
British Army so slowly raised and so ardu- 
ously drilled on the plain of Salisbury had 
come to be a war machine worth reckoning 
with. Within the safety zone of the English 
Channel, fenced off from hostile craft by a 



this war has demonstrated that international 

agreements are but of little service when once 

the guns get into action. It is more probable 

that the comparatively slight military service 

accomplished by 

either the gas or the 

fire will Jead to the 

military abanc in- 

ment of both. 

After the first two 

or three battles 



inhuman and barbaric. But the course of picket line of destroyers and scouts at either 

end, the gray transports which so lately had 
been gay transatlantic liners were plying 
back and forth dropping on the soil of France 
at each trip 2,000 or more soldiers — no longer 
a mere mob, but men trained in every art of 
war save the ultimate one of inflicting and 
defying death. Months before Kitchener 
had said, "I don't know when this war will 
end, but it will begin in May." May 
was now here and the British Army 
had begun to be an effective machine. 
While the fighting was 
in progress about Ypres 
the Germans were mak- 
ing a determined effort 
to capture Dunkirk on the 
coast of the North Sea. 
This would have served 
somewhat as a consolation 
prize tor their failure to se- 
cure Calais. They had in- 
deed captured Zeebrugge, 
the port of the city of 
Bruges. From this town 
they expelled all its in- 
habitants and converted 
it into a naval base, which 
was unsatisfactory be- 
cause of the shallowness 
of the harbor. But their 
ambitions were still centred 
upon either Dunkirk or 
Calais. The latter began 
to be the target for shells dropped from Zeppe- 
lins and Taubes, and about the middle of May 
a bombardment was begun of the town from 
a battery, the location of which never was dis- 
covered. Aeroplanes hovering above the city 
directed the fire of the battery, which was very 
accurate. As at the time the most advanced 
line of the German entrenchments was some 
twenty miles east of the city the shells must 
have been fired from a point of even greater 
distance. It was believed that the battery 
was a fixed one of great guns erected upon 
concrete foundations near Dixmude. 

More vigorous and persistent, however, 
was the bombardment of Ypres. Prior to the 
war this was one of the most beautiful ancient 




Steel turret for trench use devised by Germans. The French advance in Cham- 
pagne resulted in the capture of several steel turrets like the one in the photograph. 
They were made of three-inch plate, could he revolved, and each held a 50-millimetre gun 
and three gunners 

in which the element of surprise and novelty 
gave to these weapons an especial frightful- 
ness, it is not recorded that their use ever pro- 
duced any decisive advantage to the side 
employing them. 

In May Ypres and the Yser River became 
once more the battleground. The Germans this 
time forced the fighting, and their purpose was 
clearly to reopen the campaign for Calais 
which had so signally failed in the fall. There 
was savage fighting in the water-logged 
country intersected by sluggish canals which 
attacking parties sometimes swam under fire, 
at other times crossed on rude rafts in the 
face of a storm of bullets against which it 
seemed that no life could endure. In the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



187 



Tlienew model French soldier. Beside? 
and regular equipment he carries the ba 
side with extra cartridges anil three grenai 



Flemish cities in a land 
full of artistic towns. But 
lying as it did for some time 
between the Allied and the 
German line and occupied 
in turn by either bellig- 
erent, it suffered cruelly. 
Its grand square, or Place 
de la Ville, had long been 
one of the show places of 
Europe. One side was 
formed by the famous 
Cloth Hall, built at a time 
when trades unions were 
accustomed to house their 
places of business in 
buildings on which no ar- 
tistic effort was spared, 
and on another by the 
Gothic cathedral dating 
from the thirteenth cen- 
tury. Both were practi- 
cally demolished. The 
town itself was depopu- 
lated, its people flee- 
ing farther into France from the continuous 
rain of shells. The town itself had no 

particular 
strategic or 
d efensive 
value. Itsut- 
fered merely 
because it lay 
in the very 
middle of the 
country for 
which the 
enemies were 
so savagely 
fighting. That 
fighting was 
continuous 
for months. 
Its chronol- 
ogy presents a 
monotonous 
series of suc- 
cesses and re- 
pulses, at- 
tacks and 
counter-at- 
tacksoneither 
side. Hill 60, 
. taken early in 

hverv rrench soldier carries a respi- 1 1 

rator in his pocket, if there is an attack tne a "'On ru- 
by gases the British, 





was the object of almost 
constant German counter- 
attacks without success. 
The west bankof theYpres 
Canal, on which the Allies 
had established them- 
selves, was another point 
of constant fighting begin- 
ning as early as the 22d 
of April when the Allies 
were driven from it with 
a loss of 6,000 prisoners 
and thirty-five guns. By 
the 2d of May the German 
General Staff admitted a 
loss of 12,000 dead in the 
Battle of Ypres. 

By this time the diplo- 
matic representatives of 
both sides were making 
tierce accusations and 
counter-accusations as to 
the character of warfare 
employed by their enemies. 
Both had by this time 
come to use asphyxiating gases both in shells 
and hand grenades. The French employed 
a device for 
s p r a y i n g 
flaming li- 
quids on the 
German 
trenches, de- 
claring in re- 
sponse to the 
criticisms of 
humane ob- 
servers that 
it was done 
by way of re- 
p r i s a 1. To 
the northeast 
of Ypres on 
one occasion 
the Germans 
before attack- 
ingthe British 
rolled a huge 
cloud of as- 
phyxiating 
gas toward 
their lines, the 
volume of 
fumes being 
forty feet high 

along a six- much in demand 




Scene in the first-line trenches, where 
papers, particularly illustrated ones, are 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



mile front. Imagination refuses to conceive 
the emotions of the defenders who watched 
this slow-moving, death-dealing cloud rolling 
mysteriously down upon them. But the 




of warm work near Ypres 



British report of the action declares that 
because of the use of the then newly in- 
vented respirators comparatively few deaths 
resulted. 

As the weeks rolled on the Battle of Ypres 



extended farther and farther to either side 
of that little city. The righting extended to 
Lens, to Nieuport, to Arras, to Lorette 
Heights, to Souchez, and Carency. All 

through France 
to the west of 
Rheims the 
guns were roar- 
ing and the 
charges and 
counter- 
charges being 
delivered daily. 
But the spring 
passed into 
summer and 
the summer 
into autumn 
w i t h no ma- 
terial advan- 
tage derived by 
either party- 
It no longer 
could be said 
that such a 
deadlock was 
equivalent to 
German defeat, 
for now the task 
of advancing 
becameobvi- 
ou s 1 y in c u m- 
bent upon the 
Allies. They 
had blocked 
the triumphant 
march of Ger- 
many upon 
Paris. To that 
extent they 
were victori- 
ous. But now 
their necessary 
task was the 
expulsion of 
the invaders 
from France 
and from Bel- 
gium. So long 
as the Germans 
held all of the 
latterstate and agreatpart of the economically 
rich section of northern France they held the 
whip hand. The horrors of war had not yet 
extended beyond the German frontier. From 
the enemy country they held huge sums of 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Busy Berthas' 



money were extorted in the way of fines and benefit of the invaders. The fields, too, were 

involuntary tribute laid upon municipalities, tilled by the compulsory toil of the peasants 

The mines were worked by the compulsory in order that their product might help to 

labor of French and Belgians and for the sole make up the shortage in foodstuffs in Ger- 




Copyright by Intern.ition.il Mews Sen I 



\\ ar and art at Ypres 



190 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



many due to the British blockade. It was 
clear that while such a situation existed any 
negotiations for peace would be conducted 
with Germany holding the great advantage. 
Before such negotiations could be begun the 
invaders must be driven back to their own 
territory. Every day during which they 
successfully resisted the efforts of the British 
and French to thus expel them had to be 
counted a day won for the invaders. 

Desultory fighting without material re- 
sults occupied the armies in Flanders through- 



there was much dissatisfaction with Sir John 
French who had hitherto been the idol of the 
British Army and people. His reserves had 
not been brought up, and the advance upon 
Lens was not pushed. The German lines 
had not been pierced, although they were 
weakened by sending great masses of troops 
to the Russian front. Probably as a result 
of this failure General French was transferred 
to other activities and General Sir Douglas 
Haig succeeded him as commander-in-chief 
of the British in France and Belgium. The 




'i:~± 



out the summer. There were steady rumors 
that a great drive by the Allies was to be 
expected. But Great Britain was still pal- 
pably unprepared. The Battle of Neuve 
Chapelle, in which according to Lloyd George 
as much ammunition had been expended as 
during the whole Boer War, had shown how 
vital to success artillery ammunition, in quan- 
tities hitherto undreamed of, was. Ac- 
cordingly activities halted until September. 
Then a great drive was undertaken by the 
Allies. The French attacked along a fifteen- 
mile front in Champagne and the English 
captured Loos and for a time seemed on the 
verge of taking Lens. But although a victory 
the action at Loos resulted in so small a part 
of what might have been expected of it that 



Opyriglu by Inten 

it: Forest of Villiers-Cotteret 



spring drive which had been promised had 
become an autumn drive and that had cul- 
minated in failure. From this time until the 
summer of 1916 there was no further serious 
effort to oust the Germans from their foothold 
in the west. 

That period was needed by the Allies foi 
the organization and great extension of their 
facilities for making ammunition, and by the 
British especially for the creation of a suffi- 
cient army by enforced service. Two facts 
have been demonstrated by this war. Artil- 
lery and ammunition in quantities never 
before dreamed of form the backbone of 
modern military tactics. The Allies would 
have been annihilated in the second year of 
the war had it not been for the munition 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



191 




P« 



through the mud to duty in the drowmd trenche 



factories of the United States. Germany price of national safety. Perhaps the most 
would have been beaten had not her first remarkable feature of the whole international 
dash given her control of the iron and coal broil is that in the years preceding 1914 
deposits of France and Belgium and the France and England did not see what was 
metal works of the latter country. As for coming. Certainly Germany never made any 
the armies it has been demonstrated to all bones about rattling her sword in its scab- 
nations that universal military service is the bard and proclaiming her ambitions. 




Effect of French artillery fire on German positions before Verdun. The terrible tornado of explosives that the French let 
loose on their enemies before storming their positions sweeps the earth clear ot vegetation and ot lite where not protected by 
trenches 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The German attack on Soissons. The smoke on the left indicates French artillery answering the German shell which is shown 

bursting. The river is the Aisne 



CHRONOLOGY OF PERIOD TREATED IN CHAPTER VI 



October 30. Belgians flood lower valley of the Yser River and 

compel Germans to withdraw. 
October 31. Germans heavily reenforced along the Yser. 
November 2. Allies take Ramscapelle with the bayonet. 
November 4. Germans losing along the Yser. Three days' 

heavy fighting around Ypres. 
November 8. Belgians gain at Dixmude and Ypres. 
November II. Germans capture Dixmude, cross the Yser 

Canal, and drive Allies out of St. Eloi. 
November 15. Germans complete defensive line from the 

North Sea to the Rhine. 
November 19. Fighting in Flanders slackens, troops go into 

winter quarters. 
December 1. Germans prepare for new dash toward the sea. 

Winter conditions in Flanders very severe. 
December 3. Germans take offensive between Ypres and 

Dixmude. They lose heavily trying to cross the Yser on rafts. 
December 7. Allies begin a general offensive movement. 
December 22. Germans claim that the Allies' advance pressed 

since the 7th has failed. 
December 27. Germans begin preparations for the defence 

of Antwerp, fearing Allied advance. 
January 3. French gain near Rheims and San Mihiel. 
January 8. Allies gain north of Soissons and Rheims. 
January 13. Germans, reenforced, win victory at Soissons, 

forcing French to abandon five miles of trenches and to 

cross the Aisne, leaving guns and wounded. Fourteen 

guns and 3,150 prisoners taken by the Germans under the 

eyes of the Kaiser. 



January 21. Germans repulsed in the Ardenne Woods by 
French and Belgians. French retake trenches at Notre 
Dame de Lorette. 

February 5. Allies undertake a strong offensive in Belgium. 

February 16. French gain in Champagne. 

March 2. British gain near La Bassee. 

March 4. Germans for the first time use liquid fire against 
French advancing in Malancourt Woods. 

March n. British capture Neuve Chapelle. German loss 
estimated by the British at 18,000. 

March 15. British and French prepare for a general offensive. 

April 5. German gains in the Argonne Forest and in the 
Forest of Le Pretre, bombardment of Rheims continues. 
It is reported that one-third of the houses have been de- 
stroyed and another third damaged. The Cathedral still 
suffering. 

April 19. The British line south of Ypres has been pushed 
forward three miles. 

April 22. Germans drive the Allies back at Ypres taking 6,000 
prisoners. The fiercest fighting ot the war in the west is 
raging, about this position for the next ten days. 

May 12. Severe fighting on the whole front from Ypres to 
Arras, the Allies taking the offensive. 

June 2. Battle of the Labyrinth begins. 

June 22. Official announcement of the capture of the Laby- 
rinth by the French. 

July 2. In the western part of the Argonne the German army 
under the Crown Prince begins an offensive destined to last 
for many months without material effect. 




Photo by Paul Thompson 



BRITISH SHIP IN ACTION IN THE DARDANELLES 



194 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




CHAPTER VII 



TURKEY ENTERS THE WAR — SKILL OF GERMAN DIPLOMATS — INCIDENT OE THE I5RES- 

LAU" AND "GOF.BEN" RUSSIANS IN ASIA MINOR — SUEZ CANAL THREATENED 

THE ATTEMPT ON THE DARDANELLES — BRITISH FAILURE IN MESOPOTAMIA 





C"i'\ rii,'lit by Stuarl 



T THE beginning of the 
war the apparent 
failure of German 
diplomacy was a 
matter of wide- 
spread comment. 
People called at- 
tention to 
the fact that 
in 1870, 
when Ger- 
m a n y f e 1 1 
upon France, 
the diplo- 
macy of Bis- 
marck had 
been such 
that the war 
was abso- 
lutely iso- 
lated and the 
two belligerents left to deal with each other as 
their respective military strength permitted. 
But there was no Bismarck in 191 4. When 
Germany had thought to do battle with 
Russia, France, Servia, and Belgium at the ut- 
most, having Austria-Hungary for her ally, 
she found that her foreign office had so con- 
ducted affairs that England was at once 
drawn into the war as her enemy; that Japan, 
in the far-off Asiatic waters, became her foe; 
and that Italy which she supposed would 
surely be her ally, or at least neutral, declared 
war on Austria-Hungary and to that extent 
became the foe of Germany, though, curiously 
enough, Italy did not actually declare war 
upon Germany until the war had lasted more 
than two years. 

However, while this indictment of German 
diplomacy seemed a conclusive one, there was 
one point, overlooked by the observing world 
at the beginning of the war, in which the 
German diplomats were wholly successful. 



This was in Turkey, and the success early 
won there extended in a great degree to the 
other Balkan States. The process of winning 
the lurks to the German side had begun long 
before the shadow of this war had been cast 
upon the face of Europe. For decades 
England had been the dominant power ;it 
Constantinople, and the British Ambassador 
to that capital had been in effect its ruler. 

The diplomacy by which British influence 
at Constantinople was undermined was set on 
foot by Emperor William himself, who in 
1889 visited Constantinople and held an inter- 
view with the Sultan Abdul Hamid. Begin- 
ning with that acquaintance between the two 
almost autocratic rulers German influence 
in the Turkish dominions developed rapidly. 
German immigrants established colonies in 
Asia Minor and Syria. German banks were 
established in Constantinople, and German 
capitalists, backed by their government, se- 
cured railway concessions 111 the Turkish 
provinces. Abdul Hamid tottered to a fall 
and final exile, but the "Young Turk" move- 
ment which overthrew him was fomented 
by German influence and its strategy directed 
by German diplomats. The ruling families 
of Turkey were encouraged to send their sons 
to Berlin to get their military education, 
while General von der Goltz was sent to Ger- 
manize the I urkish army. 

In 1898 the Kaiser paid a second visit to 
Constantinople in the course of his picturesque 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Immediately there- 
after German} secured a concession for the 
Bagdad railway, extending through Anatolia 
and S\ r ria down the valleys of the Tigris and 
the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf. This was 
a direct challenge to Great Britain, menacing 
as it did her control of the route to India. 
Astute German political agents accompanied 
the surveyors of the railroad line and spread 
among the people of those countries the most 



19S 



196 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



KEY 
SS2SSS ALLIES 
ID TURKS 



EUROPE 




Cape Tekeh 



'Cape Helles 



riic Gallipoli Peninsula 

picturesque and at the same time ridiculous 
stories of the character of the German people 
and their ruler. Pictures of William II in full 
Turkish costume brandishing a scimitar were 
widely distributed, and the story told that he 
and the entire German people had become 
converts to Mohammedanism and would in 
conjunction with his brother the Sultan wage 



a holy war on 
the Christian 
dogs of Europe. 
Isolated as they 
were from any 
knowledge of 
the world, the 
simple tribes- 
men of the 
Turkish do- 
minion be- 
lieved these 
fables and were 
ready to follow 
the leaders of 
the "Young 
Turk" party 
who had long 
before been 
won over to the 
German cause 
by more ma- 
terial methods. 
Accordingly 
the war had 
hardly begun 
when incidents 
in the inner 
circles of Turk- 
ish diplomacy, 
and pro -Ger- 
man outbreaks 
in the Constan- 
tinople streets 
indicated that 
the sympathies 
of that nation 
would be with 
Germany. The 
usual procla- 
mation of neu- 
trality was is- 
sued by the 
Sublime Porte 
and the mobil- 
ization of the 
army was or- 
dered. The 
Dardanelles were closed to all ships and barred 
by rows of mines. For nearly two months a 
succession of petty but none the less signifi- 
cant incidents caused European observers to 
feel certain that Turkey would ultimately 
align herself with the Teutonic allies, but 
with characteristic procrastination the Sub- 
lime Porte held ofF any definite declaration. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



197 



Early in August there had been a curious 
incident which intensified this conviction. 
Two German ships of war, the Goeben and the 
Breslau, the former a powerful modern battle 
cruiser, were apparently trapped by a superior 
British fleet in the harbor of Genoa. To the 
amazement of the naval world they steamed 
boldly out of that harbor and without attack 
from the British made their way around the 
iend of the Italian peninsula and into the 



a purchase was in itself a gross breach of 
neutrality and Great Britain made a deter- 
mined protest. But the diplomatic corres- 
pondence on the subject prolonged by the 
proverbial procrastination of the Turks 
dragged on for weeks until it was forgotten in 
the declaration of war. 

That declaration was hastened by the 
actual commencement of hostilities by the 
Turks who on October 29, 1914, bombarded 




1 he Sultan leaving Ins carriage 



Dardanelles. It was discovered later that 
they had in some way obtained possession of 
the secret code of British naval signals and 
had tricked the British commander, Admiral 
Troubridge, by its use. But even so the 
British fleet pursuing them had every reason 
to believe that the blunder could be rectified. 
At the time they took refuge in the Darda- 
nelles Turkey was still at peace with all bellig- 
erent nations. Under international law it 
was her duty to compel the belligerent ships 
taking sanctuary in her waters to leave them 
within twenty-four hours, but day followed 
day without action until on the 13th of Au- 
gust the German cruisers displayed the Turk- 
ish flag and announcement was made that 
they had been purchased by Turkey. Such 



Odessa from the sea, and by the Russian 
fleet which on the same day attacked the 
Ottoman fleet in the Black Sea. The formal 
declaration followed on November 5th, Eng- 
land and France simultaneously joining Rus- 
sia in that action. 

The fighting force brought into the field 
against the Allies by this conclusion was one 
not to be scorned. The world has looked 
contemptuously upon the Turk in industry, 
progress, and his relations to modern thought, 
but no one of general information ev^r ques- 
tioned his fighting ability. At the moment 
that the European war broke out the Turks 
were all veterans. They had been fighting 
steadily in the Balkans for years. They are 
fatalists in character and heedless of life in 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





A view of Gaba Tepe 



their struggles against even superior forces. 
At this moment, moreover, they had been sub- 
jected as never before to the rigid discipline 
of a modern army under German leaders. 
They had always known how to fight, but 
had not known how to get the greatest ad- 



Financially, however, they brought only a 
heavy burden, for there was nothing in the 
Turkish treasury, and the expenses of the 
Turkish campaigns had to be met from the 
German war chest. 

Morally, however, the Turkish aid was 



vantages out of cooperation and how to care perhaps greater than materially. To begin 

for themselves in camp and field. The Ger- with it instantly put Great Britain on guard 

mans, too, had equipped them with the most in Egypt and the Soudan. These Moham- 

modern arms and munitions. Accordingly medan countries had been held by Great 

the Turks brought to the Teutonic allies Britain under a protectorate. Egypt, ruled 

immediately an effective force of more than nominally by a Sultan, was practically under 



a million men, with the reserve power which 
inheres in a nation of 17,000,000 people. 




Copyright by Underwood A- Underwood 

Australian troops taking a swim at Alexandria before their transport leaves 
for the Dardanelles 



British domination. How far, however, the 
puppet Sultan and the people who were tied to 
Turkey by the bond of a common 
religion could be trusted in this 
emergency was a matter of grave 
import to the British Government. 
No outbreak, however, occurred, 
but the British thought it expedi- 
ent to declare formally a British 
protectorate of the country. Like 
action was taken with reference 
to the Island ef Cyprus. 

It became apparent immediately 
upon the declaration of war by 
Turkey that, at German incentive, 
the Suez Canal would be the im- 
mediate objective of the Turkish 
armies. Troops were instantly sent 
into Asia Minor, and the tribesmen 
of that territory under the suze- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



199 




Street scene in the village of Gallipoli 



rainty of the Sultan were encouraged to put 
their armies into the held and attack the 
infidels at every point. The prolonged and 
savage fighting in Asia Minor, in Persia, 
and the Sinai Peninsula cannot be described 
in any detail here. Several times the canal 
was menaced, but in the end all the efforts 
for its seizure or destruction proved futile. 
The British landed heavy bodies of troops 
drawn largely from India on the Mediter- 
ranean and Red Sea coast while the Russians 
entered Asia Minor from the Black Sea, 
taking the enemies of the Allies in the rear. 
The fighting was vigorous but inconclusive. 
Only once was the canal put in serious jeop- 
ardy. The efforts of the Porte to 
have the tribesmen declare a holy 
war were futile, and the sanguinary 
horrors of that sort of conflict were 
happily averted. The story of the 
fighting in Syria, Palestine, and the 
countries bordering on the Mediter- 
ranean were curiously reminiscent 
of the Hebrew scriptures with their 
continual references to places and 
provinces mentioned in the Old 
Testament. 

But while this desultory and 
inconclusive warfare was being 
waged in Asia Minor the British 
were preparing for a stroke at the 
Turkish power, which, had it been 



successful, would have ended the menace of 
the Turco-German alliance, would have de- 
stroyed all Turkish influence in either Europe 
or Asia, and would have appreciably hastened 
the end of the war. Instead of doing any 
of these things, however, it failed and failed 
disastrously. 

Constantinople, as is well known, lies just 
off the sea of Marmora and is reached from 
the Mediterranean by the narrow strait 
known as the Dardanelles. During the 
period of modern European history sover- 
eignty over this strait has been conceded to 
the Turkish empire. 

The British now determined to break the 




One of the British transports oft Gallipoli 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Ausi 1.1I1 



troops charge ;i Turkish trench near Gallipoli 



Dardanelles barrier. They blundered at and power that Krupp's works could produce, 
the outset by underestimating its strength. They were manned by .Turkish soldiers, 
The forts along the precipitous sides of now drilled into a state of the highest effi- 
the narrow waterway were no longer merely ciency by German drill masters, while German 
the works of antiquated masonry which for artillerists directed the fire that was con- 
centuries had guarded the strait. Under the centrated upon the attacking ships, 
direction of skilled German engineers power- The Allies made their initial blunder by 
ful earth works had been erected and equipped proceeding with the utmost deliberation 
with the most modern weapons of precision with all their preparations for an attack upon 

this strong- 



jft^T*1f?NH|fe 4 ^'* i §P*? '' 




A small portion of the stores at Lancashire landing, near Sedd-el-Bahr 



hold. There 
is every rea- 
son to be- 
lieve that 
had that at- 
tack been 
delivered in 
force, both 
military and 
naval, in the 
last months 
of i 9 i 4 it 
might have 
succeeded. 
At that time 
the effect of 
German or- 
g a n i z i n g 
ability had 
not yet been 
manifest 
among the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




British troops land at t 

Turkish troops, nor had many of the forts 
then been equipped with German artillery. 
But in November of that year the Allies did 
the worst possible thing by giving evidence 
of their intention to attack the straits by 
beginning a desultory bombardment of the 
forts. To this warning was soon added the 
news that a great naval expedition was being 
fitted out by 
both Eng- 
land and 
France. 
Thereupon 
naturally 
the Turks 
spurred on 
to action by 
their Ger- 
man leaders 
began fever- 
ish endeav- 
ors to put 
the threat- 
ened point 
in the high- 
est state of 
defence. 

When the 
Allies actu- 
ally moved 
thev blun- 



s and gain firm footing 



dered again. It seems probable that a 
joint military and naval expedition striking 
simultaneously so that the enemy's forts 
would have been engaged both on the land- 
ward and the seaward side might have 
succeeded. Instead of it, the first attack 
was made wholly by the navy. What was 
"probably the most powerful fleet ever brought 







THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The Russian Campaign in Asia Minor. After the capture of Erzerum the Russian forces pushed on in three columns, one 
toward Trebizond, the second toward Erzingan and Sivas, where the main Turkish army had its base, and the third column 
southward to Mush and Bitlis. The capture of Erzerum and the advance into Asia Minor enabled the Russians to capture rver- 
manshah, in Persia, and to turn westward toward Bagdad, with the aim of cooperating with the British in Mesopatamia 



into action composed of more than fifty 
British and French ships appeared at the 
entrance to the Dardanelles late in Febru- 
ary. The strait itself is about forty-two miles 
long, very tortuous in its course, and varying 
in width from one to four miles. The chan- 
nel was of course blocked at the outset by 
Turkish mines. The defences at the TLgean 
entrance were antiquated and quite readily 
silenced by the assailants. First among the 
attacking fleet was the famous super-dread- 
nought Queen Elizabeth, carrying eight 1 5-inch 
guns in her primary battery with a range far 
exceeding that of any ordnance mounted in the 
Turkish batteries, so that she could easily 
lie at a point thoroughly safe from any fire 
from the enemy, sheltered by intervening 
hills, and drop her 15-inch shells into the en- 
emy's works. One of these shells discharged 
20,000 shrapnel bullets. Backed by such 
ships as the Agamemnon, Irresistible, and the 
French Gaulois, she began the bombardment 
at a range of from 11,000 to 12,000 yards, 
and in less than an hour the forts at Kumkale 
and Sedd-el-Bahr were reduced to such a 
degree of impotence that the smaller vessels 
could run in and finish the work. This en- 
gagement took place on March 5th, and the 
success of the British was so complete that 
they felt confident that the conquest of the 



straits from end to end would be effected 
with equal ease. This hope, however, proved 
illusory. On March 18th the allied fleet 
entered the straits with the purpose of press- 
ing through and silencing the forts on either 
side as thev progressed. But they found 
that forts and batteries they supposed were 
silenced suddenly sprang into new life and 
poured upon them a savage and well-directed 
fire. Trawlers and destroyers had been sent 
ahead to sweep the strait ot mines, but the 
battle had hardly been in progress two hours 
when the Bouvet, the largest of the French bat- 
tleships on the scene, struck a mine. Sinking 
by the stern as she rapidly began to do, she at- 
tracted the attention of the Turkish gunners 
who concentrated upon her a fierce fire. Badly 
cut to pieces and with the operation of her ma- 
chinery abruptly stopped, the Bouvet sunk 
while surrounded by torpedo boat sand destroy- 
ers striving to save her crew. Only a few could 
be rescued. Shortly thereafter the Irresisti- 
ble, a British pre-dreadnought and the Ocean 
of the same class, also went down, but swift 
action by destroyers saved most of their per- 
sonnel. The British had thought the Turkish 
tiger was sleeping, but it had savagely used 
its teeth and claws. 

The complete failure of the allied fleet in 
the Dardanelles was a bitter disappointment 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



203 



to its champions, particularly to those in 
England where it had been believed that the 
British navy was equal to any task that might 
be set it. But it may be said that this 
war has demonstrated that a fleet alone can 
never be effective against land fortifications. 
Naval authorities of both allied nations 
insisted that the passage of the straits 
was not impossible, but coupled their in- 
sistence with the conclusion that such a pas- 
sage would be valueless unless accompanied 
by a land force to take possession of the de- 
fences which the ships would put out of action. 
Accordingly while the allied fleets, an- 
choring out of danger, continued a desultory 
bombardment of the forts, a great military 
expedition was organized in Egypt under the 
command of Sir Ian Hamilton. Fifty thou- 
sand men, both French and British, reached 
the Gallipoli Peninsula early in April. The 
Turks were well warned by this time and were 
feverishly preparing for defence. They were 
ably seconded in their efforts by the British 
who, when they came to unload their trans- 
ports, found that the various units and their 
supplies had been so badly mixed on em- 
barking that it was impossible to unload them 



with any efficiency. The whole fleet had to 
return to Egypt, and after rearrangement 
returned and began its landing on April 
25th. By this time the Turks had rushed 
troops into the Gallipoli Peninsula until 
they outnumbered the invaders easily four 
to one. At every point where the typog- 
raphy of the shore lent itself to a successful 
landing the Turks were strongly intrenched, 
their earthworks and their batteries masked 
so that from the ships there seemed no serious 
obstacle to taking possession of the country. 
The British troops were wholly without 
experience in war, the vast majority of them 
being men who six months before had been 
leading a peaceful life in Australia and New 
Zealand, five thousand miles away. Their 
officers were equally inexperienced. The 
first landing was made at a point, Gaba Tepe, 
a bay on the iEgean side of the peninsula 
away from the Dardanelles. The landing 
was begun about 3 a. m. while it was still dark, 
the men being placed in small boats which 
were towed by the battleships and destroyers 
as near to the shore as the draught of water 
would permit. About a half a mile from 
shore the boats cast off and made their way 




The Turk in Asia 



204 

toward the beach. In that darkest hour that 
precedes the dawn the watchers on the ships 
could not tell whether their fellows were 
approaching a deserted coast or whether in 
that blackness there lurked a powerful force 
of the enemy ready to greet them with rifle 
shots and machine guns. Suddenly they saw 
an alarm light flash on thje shore and signal 
for a moment or two, when there burst out 
a rapid fire of rifles that told to the men sti 
on the ships that their comrades would have 



fHE NATIONS AT WAR 



"From 
pened in 



them we learned what had hap- 
those first wild moments. All 
he tows had almost reached the beach, 
when a party of Turks intrenched almost 
on the shore opened up a terrible fusillade 
from rifles and also from a Maxim. Fortu- 
nately most of the bullets went high, but, 




At the Dardanelles 



to fight their way to a foothold on the beach. 
A correspondent of the London Times tells 
in graphic phrase the story of this first effort 
of the British forces to establish themselves 
on Turkish territory: 

"The first authentic news we received came 
with the return of our boats. A steam pin- 
nace came alongside with two recumbent 
forms on her deck and a small figure, pale 
but cheerful, and waving his hand astern. 
They were one of our midshipmen, just six- 
teen years of age, shot through the stomach, 
but regarding his injury more as a fitting 
consummation to a glorious holiday ashore 
than a wound, and a chief stoker and petty 
officer, all three wounded by that first burst 
of musketry which caused many casualties 
in the boats just as they reached the beach. 



nevertheless, many men were hit as they sat 
huddled together forty or fifty in a boat. 

"It was a trying moment, but the Aus- 
tralian volunteers rose as a man to the 
occasion. They waited neither for orders 
nor for the boats to reach the beach, but, 
springing out into the sea, they waded 
ashore and, forming some sort of a rough 
line, rushed straight on the flashes of the 
enemy's rifles. Their magazines were not 
even charged. So they just went in with 
cold steel, and I believe I am right in saying 
that the first Ottoman Turk since the last 
Crusade received an Anglo-Saxon bayonet 
in him at five minutes after 5 a. m. on April 
25th. It was over in a minute. The Turks 
in this first trench were bayoneted or ran 
away, and a Maxim gun was captured." 

But the Turks did not long continue to 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



205 



run, nor did they run far. The braggadocio 
of British journalists in the early days of the 
campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula sounds 
merely laughable when read in the light of 
the events of that disastrous enterprise. 
All along the promontory from the Bulair 
Isthmus to the toe of the boot to which that 
bit of land is sometimes compared, the land- 
ing was pushed, with gallantry it is true, 
but against savage opposition. The country 
lent itself readily to defence, for steep bluffs 



ground, but on the 26th actually charged 
the invaders while their snipers tried to pick 
off the officers and men on the decks of the 
ships a mile or more away. The British tried 
some curious expedients to deceive the enemy 
and to smuggle additional forces ashore un- 
seen. At one point on the peninsula a big 
herd of donkeys with dummy baggage was 
put ashore in the hope of attracting the 
Turkish attention to that spot while a 
large detachment of troops was being landed 




wagon passing through the great gully at He 



rose directly from the beach and the table- 
land above was so broken with ridges, val- 
leys, bluffs, and sand pits that the enemy's 
snipers and machine-gun batteries could 
find cover on every hand. The landing 
operations were conducted at three points, 
and from the ships lying two miles or more 
out a heavy and continuous fire was poured 
upon the land occupied by the Turks. Every 
kind of shell was dropped upon their works 
from the 15-inch shrapnel of the Queen 
Elizabeth down to the little one-pounders 
which made up in numbers what they lacked 
in size. But the lurks, righting with their 
customary gallantry, not only held their 



at another. Again a big merchant liner, 
filled with troops who were kept under 
hatches, was allowed to drift, apparently 
helplessly, toward the beach. She was ob- 
viously not a ship of war and was apparently 
abandoned, so that the Turkish batteries let 
her run aground without attack. The idea 
had been that as soon as she was actually 
beached great doors that had been cut in 
her sides would be flung open and the men 
rushed ashore without the need of boats or 
exposure to fire other than briefly. Unluck- 
ily she stranded at a point where there was 
deep water between her and the beach. 
This made it necessary to bring up a lighter 



206 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



to ford the men across. Naturally this 
attracted the attention of the Turks, who 
instantly directed a perfect tornado of rifle 
and machine-gun fire on the men as they 
showed themselves. Disembarkation under 
these conditions meant certain death, and 
as it was apparent the Turks had no heavy 
artillery at that point with which to demolish 
the ship, any further action on the part of 
the two thousand men aboard was stopped 
for the time. So the men aboard lay be- 
tween decks all day while the clatter of bul- 
lets rattled against her sides and the battle- 
ships round about kept up a fierce fire on the 



fired and the green bird promptly fell to the 
earth, dropping his rifle. Its hands, face, 
and rifle were painted green and its clothing 
was of the same color, but of a darker shade. 
The bag was as heartily cheered by the men 
as if it were a Turkish regiment, for that 
particular sniper had been an undoubted 
terror. On another part of the field a pretty 
harem lady sniper was after considerable 
effort rounded up and brought into the British 
lines. She cried and struggled, pointing piti- 
fully to another part of the bush from whence 
she had been brought. At length a de- 
tachment of men allowed her to lead the 




The wreck of H. M. S. Loma which ran aground in a southwest gale. A shell from the enemy battery is seen striking the water 
close to the wreck. The telescope on the right is that of an observer who is trying to spot the enemy battery which is firing 



neighboring coast to prevent the Turks from 
bringing batteries into action. Under the 
cover of darkness the troops finally got ashore 
with but little loss. 

Very early in this campaign the invaders 
came to have a very high respect for the 
Turkish "sniper." Some of the stories of 
the devices adopted by these sharpshooters 
for escaping attention while striking down 
their enemies are most picturesque. A writer 
in the Fortnightly Review tells these two: 

"A captain of a London territorial regi- 
ment happened to look back after his men 
had passed a solitary tree on the field when 
he noticed something moving on it. It 
looked like a green bird. He took aim and 



way to the spot indicated, and here they 
found her child in a dugout tastefully fur- 
nished. In a corner was a pile of identifica- 
tion disks probably taken systematically 
from the necks of dead soldiers, and an al- 
most endless supply of ammunition. Care- 
fully hidden away was her yashmak (veil) 
which the men allowed her to take away." 

While the British were landing on the 
European side of the Dardanelles the French 
under General DAmade also landed on 
the Asiatic side and established themselves 
firmly. Their first attack was on the fort 
at Kum Kale which they took. But there- 
after for months, though there was continued 
fighting, and both the British and French 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



207 



troops were repeatedly reenforced, the effort 
to push up the peninsula and the mainland 
toward the narrows was but a distressing rec- 
ord of continued reverses. In fact, it was 
but a few weeks after the landing was com- 
plete before the military authorities of the 
allied governments began to understand that 
the problem likely to be forced upon them 
was not how they should get to Constanti- 
nople, but rather how they should get their 
men off the peninsula and to safety. There 
was no lack of gallantry on the part of the 
invading forces, but they were enormously 
outnumbered. Though they were supplied 



peoples. It might not come, but even so 
it was of vital importance that no admission 
of a great disaster should be made public at 
that critical moment. 

In August, 191 5, following a visit to Egypt 
of Lord Kitchener a new expedition of 150,000 
men to join in the Gallipoli attack was em- 
barked at a port on the Island of Lemnos and 
moved to Suvla Bay near the head of the 
Gallipoli Peninsula. This time there had 
been no blundering in the embarkation while 
the attention of the Turks had been success- 
fully diverted from the landing point by 
feints made by other forces in other direc- 




Greatest care was taken with the drinking water of t 



with every possible engine of war, the stub- 
bornness of the resistance they encountered 
was such that their expedition was actually 
abandoned before they reached the first 
line of the Turkish defence of Constantinople. 
The spring and summer of 1915 was a 
period full of discouragement to the Allies. 
Everywhere they were fighting defensive 
battles, nowhere could they point to a more 
inspiriting success than merely holding the 
enemy in check. Great Britain had not yet 
successfully grappled with the conscription 
issue, and the troops which had been raised 
by voluntary enlistment had not yet become 
really effective. Some great success was 
most desirable to stimulate the enthusiasm 
and reawaken the confidence of the allied 



mediately placed 



tions. Accordingly they were put ashore 
without serious opposition at a point called 
Ari Burnu, but which the soldiers promptly 
named Anzac Bay, that name being derived 
from the initials of the words by which the 
troops engaged in the expedition were known 
— "Australia and New Zealand Army 
Corps." With this foothold it was hoped that 
the Turkish main force on the peninsula 
might be attacked simultaneously front and 
rear and thus overwhelmed. Admirable as 
the plan seemed it was destined to failure. 
There followed twelve days of uninterrupted 
fighting in which the losses were heavier 
than at any other period of the Dardanelles 
campaign. And yet nothing came of this at 
all except the definite check of the British. 



2o8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



With the failure of this effort to destroy the 
Turkish defences, which became apparent 
by the middle of October, any further serious 
attempt on the part of the British to carry 
out their original plan of campaign against 
Constantinople was abandoned. The pres- 
ence of defeat was too obvious. The offen- 
sive was dropped and all military minds in 
the general staff of the Allies were concen- 
trated on the problem how to get the army, 
which by this time numbered 200,000 men or 
more, out of the peninsula. Here for the 



the first week of January, 1916, all had left 
the peninsula. The French, who had held 
the Asiatic mainland, were withdrawn at 
about the same moment. 

No single operation of the great war re- 
sulted so disastrously to the Allies as the 
Dardanelles expedition. It had been mis- 
managed from the first, and the ultimate 
failure was made all the more bitter to Eng- 







British batteries at work at the Dardanelles 



first time the Turks, notwithstanding their 
German leadership, showed inefficiency. They 
had been magnificent in defence. While it 
was true that they had the advantage of 
overwhelming numbers, they defended their 
country successfully against a powerful at- 
tacking force on land and a naval force of 
absolutely unprecedented strength. But now 
they let slip the game that was fairly within 
their grasp. For some reason they could 
not be led into any effective attack upon the 
British forces which were really at their 
mercy. Instead they kept up a merely 
desultory assault upon the British outposts, 
while with most admirable skill Sir Ian Ham- 
ilton gradually withdrew his forces until In- 



land because the record showed so many 
points at which military miscalculations or 
mere stupidity' explained that failure. The 
price paid was a loss reported officially up 
to December 11, 191 5, of 112,921 men. More- 
over, there were up to that time 96,683 men 
admitted to the Allies' hospitals. Six battle- 
ships, one of them French, were lost in the 
course of the naval operations. The num- 
ber of men invalided to the hospitals was 
abnormal in the course of this war, during 
which the most scientific systems of sanita- 
tion had kept the mere cases of sickness down 
to a minimum never before maintained in 
large military operations. But the condi- 
tions of fighting were such as to break down 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



209 



the constitutions of the men. The water 
supply was utterly inadequate. All water 
had to be brought by ship, landed in water 
bags, and carried on mule back to the various 
camps. General Hamilton reported that in 
the battle of August 10th he dared not order 
his reserves into action because of their 
sufferings from thirst. 

"At Anzac," he said, "when the mules 



fortune in attack. There has seldom been 
so extraordinary an achievement as the 
withdrawal of the British force from Suvla 
and Anzac with practically no loss whatso- 
ever. General Hamilton in advance esti- 
mated his probable casualties at 50 per cent.; 
they were in fact three killed and five wounded 
out of more than 70,000 men withdrawn. 
The withdrawal was effected in two nights 




View of the landing camp pitched by the Allies at the Dardanelles 



with water bags arrived at the front, the 
men would rush up to them in swarms just 
to lick the moisture that exuded through the 
canvas bags." At other points lighters 
carrying the water from the ships to the 
shore grounded some distance out and the 
men had to swim to them to fill their water 
bottles. 

Notwithstanding all these difficulties Gen- 
eral Hamilton was bitterly aggrieved by the 
order to retire. He felt that arduous as was 
the task its performance was still not hope- 
less and with reinforcements and pertinacity 
he might still carry the day. But his orders 
were imperative, and his good fortune in 
retreat made up to some degree for his mis- 



and conducted so quietly and with such 
astute measures for the deception of the 
Turks that the latter were lulled to security 
and hardly awakened to the fact that their 
enemy was stealing away before the entire 
British expedition was again on its ships. 

So ended the Dardanelles expedition. It 
accomplished nothing for its projectors, but 
its failure had no material effect on the 
progress of the war. It is true that some 
300,000 Turks were set free to join in the 
attack on the Suez Canal. How little they 
accomplished in that direction w r as soon to 
be shown. 

While the British and French were push- 
ing their Dardanelles expedition with a gal- 



2IO 

lantry worthy of a better outcome the Rus- 
sians were advancing into Asia Minor from 
the east and the British from the west, while 
the Turkish forces between them were put- 
ting up a magnificent fight on both fronts 
with a degree of success that even at the end 
of the second year of the war left the question 
of domination in Asia Minor still undeter- 
mined. The Russians and the Turks were 
on the offensive, the British strictly on the 
defensive, for their one task was to defend 
the Suez Canal. What the Russians sought 
first was the capture of the town of Erzerum, 
a town in Armenia just southeast of the Rus- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



and though railroads were unavailable and 
the country most difficult to cover, penetrated 
far into the interior. The Russian Grand 
Duke Nicholas who had suddenly and mys- 
teriously disappeared from around Galicia, 
where he had been in command of the Rus- 
sian armies during their first advance into 
that country, appeared in the Caucasus in 
the middle of February, 191 5. His appear- 
ance there was an amazement to the military 
world as well as to the defenders of that town, 
for the campaign had been undertaken in 
the dead of winter, the converging columns 
of Russians advancing through a tangle of 




Troops landing at the Dardanelles 



sian border. This ancient fortress on the 
Turkish road to India, and on the Russian 
road through Asia Minor to Constantinople, 
has long been a strategic point for which 
the Russians and Turks have struggled. 
Since the beginning of the last century this 
warfare has taken the shape of endless riot, 
massacre, and border warfare between the 
Christian Armenians and the Kurds who 
yield allegiance to the Crescent. The Chris- 
tian world has long sorrowed for the suffer- 
ings of the Armenians, but has been able to 
accomplish nothing for the amelioration of 
their lot because of the international politics 
involved in that situation. Perhaps one 
good that may come of this great war will 
be the end of this continuing crime which has 
shocked humanity for half a century. 

Scarcely had war between Russia and Tur- 
key been declared when the Russian army 
crossed the border, overran northern Persia, 



mountain passes on wretched dirt roads and 
without a single railroad. The Black Sea 
was of course open to the Russians, but the 
only port connected with Erzerum by a 
tolerable road was Trebizond which was in 
the hands of the Turks. With Erzerum 
taken the next important step in the Russian 
campaign was the capture of this point on 
the Black Sea. Accordingly in the summer 
of 191 5 about a third of the Grand Duke's 
army at Erzerum was dispatched to take 
Trebizond, while the remainder turned to 
the southward pursuing the Turks and fight- 
ing for control of the roads leading up to the 
Bagdad railway. It was on the 16th of 
February that the chief Armenian city had 
been taken; March 2d they took the fortified 
city of Bitlis; and on the 18th of April, with 
the Black Sea fleet cooperating with them, 
the Russian land forces actually entered 
Trebizond. This rapid advance, though it 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



affected a comparatively small section of 
Persia, was of incalculable value to the 
British for it diverted the attention of the 
Turks from their attack upon Suez. Not- 
withstanding the difficult nature of the 
country in the Sinai Peninsula, where water 
for the use of the troops had to be hauled, 
where a railroad had to be built, and where 
the historic camel held his ground against 
the modern automobde as a means of trans- 
port, the dashing and pertinacious Turks 
had been able more than once to get across 
from Palestine to Suez with small bodies of 
troops. In February, 191 5, just as the Grand 



months their successes were uninterrupted. 
By July of 191 5 the expedition then under 
command of General Sir John Nixon was 
within striking distance of Bagdad. But 
thereupon misfortune fell heavily upon them. 
The British had evidently erred as they did 
at Antwerp, and again at the Dardanelles. 
They had sent a boy to do a man's job. 
Attacked at Ctesiphon by an overwhelming 
Turkish force the expedition was badly 
beaten and under command of Sir John 
Townshend forced to retreat some sixty miles 
to a point called Kut-el-Amara. Here for 
five months it was held so closely invested 




Turk troops at Gallipoli whii 

Duke was beginning his campaign, a body 
of Nizams did actually succeed in getting 
across the desert carrying bridging material 
and getting a foothold on the south bank of 
the Canal only to be driven back. 
jMost important of the British expeditions 
in Asia Minor was that into Mesopotamia, 
begun early in the war. The Euphrates and 
Tigris rivers, uniting in the Shatt-el-Arab, 
flow through important oil fields belonging 
to an English company. The war had hardly 
begun before the importance of oil as a 
munition of war became apparent, and the 
British, having taken the port of Basra some 
distance up the river, undertook an expedi- 
tion partly for the protection of these oil 
fields and partly to begin an advance upon 
Bagdad which was destined to be the ter- 
minus of the German railroad south from 
Constantinople. They were opposed by the 
Turks from the very first, but for eight 



y International News Service 



h have held the Allies at bay 

that it could be reached only by aeroplanes. 
Early in January, 1916, a strong relief col- 
umn was sent out to its aid. But its path 
was blocked by superior forces. In the end 
the beleaguered British were forced by 
starvation and the exhaustion of all supplies 
to surrender on April 29, 1916. 

The war in the irregular quadrangle, 
bounded by the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, 
the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Medi- 
terranean, was fought by the troops of four 
great nations and almost uncounted irregular 
forces representing various Ottoman tribes. 
The Shah of Persia early declared himself 
with the Allies, while the Mohammedans of 
Egypt and the tribes of India proved to be, 
if not at heart altogether loyal to Great 
Britain, at least sufficiently so to give no 
serious cause for anxiety. Had it been 
otherwise the situation of the British, par- 
ticularly in that section, would have been 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



desperate. As it was, with the exception 
of a single serious defeat at Kut-el-Amara, 
they suffered no serious reverse, and although 
mainly on the defensive, saw the second 
year of the war end with both the Suez Canal 
and their East Indian possessions apparently 
free from any further menace. For the 
Turks the situation was more serious. It 
appeared that they were to pay dearly for 
their alliance with the Teutons. The Per- 
sians whom they looked upon as allies, and 
the Arabs whom they regarded as then vas- 



sals, threw off their Turkish yoke and sided 
openly with the Allies. The Syrians, too, 
revolted against Turkish despotism, and 
through it all, while the British were content 
with stubbornly guarding their own, the 
great Russian armies drove through the 
Turkish territory, forcing its defenders from 
one fortified town to another, capturing 
whole armies with their guns and munitions, 
and apparently assured of success in their 
purpose of reducing Turkey in Asia to com- 
plete subjection. 




ij«i>er Illustration, Ltd 



Heliograph signallers with the Turkish Army 



CHRONOLOGY OF PERIOD TREATED IN CHAPTER VII 



October 29. Turkey begins war with Russia by bombarding 

Odessa. 
November 5. England and France declare war on Turkey; 

Russians begin invasion of Armenia. 
November 15. British troops land in Basra province and 

invade Arabia. 
November 22 Turks in small numbers reach Suez Canal 
December 23. Turkish army leaves Damascus and marche' 

toward the Suez Canal. 
January 9. Turks build railway across Sinai Peninsula te 

attack Suez 
January 27 The British defeat the Turks near El Kantara 
February 3. Turks, while trying to cross the Canal, are routed 

with heavy loss, many drowned in the Canal. 
February 28. Turks withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and 

abandon the attack on the Canal 
March 26. Turks massacring native Christians in various 

parts of Persia and Armenia United States Ambassador 

Morgenthau at Constantinople called upon for aid. 
February 25. British and French fleets reduce forts at the 

entrance to the Dardanelles. 
February 27 Forty British and French warships penetrate 

the Dardanelles for fourteen miles. 
March 18. End of British successes in the Dardanelles 

British battleships Irresistible and Ocean, and French 

battleship Bouvet, are sunk. 
April 30. British land expedition against the Gallipoh 

Peninsula begun. 



July 7. Heavy fighting between the Allies and Turks on the 

Gallipoli Peninsula. British public begins to doubt tht 

wisdom or the possible success of the expedition. 
July 24. British report successes in southern Arabia. 
August 2. Australians and New Zealanders take important 

points in the Dardanelles. 
August 25. Allies advancing along a twelve-mile front jn 

the Gallipoli Peninsula. 
August 31. Germans claim the British have lost 50,000 men 

in the Dardanelles since August 6th. 
September 16. Official British figures show British casualties 

at the Dardanelles up to August 21st to reach 87,600 
September. 23. French and British reinforcements ti the 

number of 110,000 sent to the Dardanelles 
October 15. British report 96,899 men lost at the Dardanelles 
October 19. Major-General Monro succeeds General Sir Ian 

Hamilton as British commander in Gallipoli. 

November 24. British fall back when within 18 miles of 
Bagdad withjloss of 2,000 men. Turks aggressive thereafter. 

December 3. British Mesopotamian expedition retires to 
Kut-el-Amara and is besieged there. 

January 9. Allies abandon the Gallipoli Peninsula. 

January 16. British relief expedition on the Tigris drives 

Turks to within six miles of Kut-el-Amara. 
February 2. Floods check British relief expedition. 
April 29. British surrender ten thousand men and equipment 

at Kut-el-Amara. 



214 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

Russian troops passing through Stryj (Galicia) after the capture of Przemysl 



CHAPTER VIII 



WARSAW AND AFTER — FAILURE TO DESTROY RUSSIAN ARMY — 
THE PROLONGED RUSSIAN RETREAT — THE BEAR TURNS TO BAY 
— TRANSFER OF GRAND-DUK.E NICHOLAS — GENERALS K.UROFATK.IN AND 
BRUSSILOV LEAD THE NEW DRIVE RECORD OF RUSSIAN SUCCESSES 




HE fall of Warsaw seemed 
to mark the culmination 
of the German successes 
in the campaign against 
Russia. It was heralded 
widely throughout the 
world as a decisive vic- 
tory,as indeed it was with 
one limitation That is 
to say, the Germans had 
been successful in cap- 
turing the city which had 
been their goal during 
months of hard fighting 
They secured possession 
of the political and in 
dustrial capital of Rus- 
sian Poland. They were 
able to announce to the 
world a success which 
coming after so long a 
struggle could not fail to 
impress public opinion 
with a new respect for 
the German arms, and 
to enhance the morale 
of the German army, 

Viceroys body uuard i ■ i • j j 

which, indeed, at no time 
during this savage war, has manifested any 
need for improvement. 

But, on the other hand, it was very quickly 
demonstrated bv events following the cap- 
ture of Warsaw that it was in fact but half a 
victory. It cannot be too strongly empha- 
sized in any account of this war that the 
struggle at the end of two years has reached 
only an inconclusive point, because while 
cities and fortresses have been taken and 
lost, while provinces have been reduced to 
the temporary occupancy of an enemy and 
again triumphantly rescued by their defend- 
ers, there has not been one instance, save 




perhaps that of Servia, in which any consid 
erable army of any belligerent has been de- 
stroyed. Even the Belgian army, weak ar 
it was in the face of the German aggressor, 
still existed as an effective fighting unit two 
vears after the first fort fell at Liege, and in 
August, 1 91 6, a fragment of the Servian army 
was in the field. Von Kluck's advance upon 
Paris was indeed checked before that city 
became his prize. But even had he succeeded 
in his object, French strategy had already 
made ample preparations for the escape of 
the French army, and with that army in 
being the defence of the nation would have 
continued even though the German flag 
floated over the French capital. In our own 
Civil War while Richmond was the prize 
for which Grant's armv strove for more than 
two years, its capture would not have ended 
the war. Had not Lee clung to Richmond 
until his army was cut to pieces exhausted, 
and on the verge of starvation, that war 
might well have been prolonged another 
year. It was the destruction of the armies of 
the Confederacy, not the capture of its capi- 
tal, that brought peace 

So in occupying Warsaw, without destroy- 
ing the Russian army which had defended it, 
General von Hindenburg tailed of complete 
success. Though the Russians were in fact 
beaten, they nevertheless were withdrawn 
from the lost capital by the Grand Duke 
Nicholas with consummate military skill 
and without serious shock to their morale. 

In the midst of their exultation over the 
capture of Warsaw the Germans did not 
lose sight of the fact that with the Russian 
army still in existence their victory was in- 
complete. Von Hindenburg pressed on rap- 
idly in pursuit of the retreating Russians. 
It was his hope and the hope then of the 
German people that if this army could be 



2l6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



overtaken and annihilated Russia would be 
willing to negotiate a separate peace and 
leave the French and English to their fate. 
It has been demonstrated later that this was 
but a futile aspiration. Even had the armies 
of the Grand Duke Alexieff been annihilated 
the spirit of the Russian Government con- 
templated no such retreat from the conflict, 
and the patient ox-like Russian peasant had 



city and slipped out of his clutches. The 
Germans followed swiftly and pertinaciously. 
In some quarters it was believed that this 
retirement of the Russians in the direction 
of Petrograd was in fact a ruse intended to 
lure their enemies farther into Russian terri- 
tory where the great distances and the 
abominable roads would make their move- 
ments difficult, while fresh Russian troops 







German Zeppelin inspecting Warsaw 



no thought in his mind of refusing to obey the 
orders of his superiors though they carried 
him to the field of carnage. But as a matter 
of fact the Russian army was in no real dan- 
ger of destruction. Alexieff had prepared 
many positions back of Warsaw to which 
now his army retreated and checked for a 
time the Teutons in their advance. One 
by one these positions were taken by the 
invaders. At Vilna. well within Russian 
territory, Von Hindenburg failed only nar- 
rowly of bagging a large force that had taken 
refuge in that fortress. He had surrounded 
it all save for a narrow gap of a few miles 
only, when the Russians wisely abandoned the 



with their store of munitions renewed would 
be able to cut them off" from communication 
with their base. 

The German press and sympathizers on the 
other hand were exultant over the Russian 
retreat and noisily claimed that within a few 
weeks the German armies would be in Petro- 
grad. But, as in so many instances in this 
war, the triumphant pursuing army seemed 
to suffer more than the one in retreat. Kovno 
and Grodno, important Russian fortified 
points, were indeed taken by the invaders, 
while Von Mackensen, commanding the 
southern end of the German lines, took 
Brest-Litowsk, the greatest intrenched camp 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



217 



in all Russia. Here he hoped to secure great 
quantities of munitions, but in this he was 
disappointed, for by this time the Russian 
armies had not enough munitions for use, 
and certainly none for storage. Moreover, 
like his colleague, Von Hindenburg to the 
north, he had failed to catch the defending 
army which slipped away and continued 
its rear-guard righting until by the end of 



shells, and munitions of war from the busy 
factories of Japan. The Russian forces 
had suffered from a dearth of skilled artiller- 
ists, but during this slow retreat men had 
been trained to the use of the great guns, 
and more and more the artillery came to be 
an efficient aid to the hundreds of thousands 
of untrained common soldiers whom the great 
empire of the north had been able to put into 




Prince Leopold nf Bavaria, the cornpie 



if Warsaw, riding at the head of his 
cient Polish capital 



f the principal streets ol tl 



October the Germans had penetrated that 
part of Russia almost to the Pripet River. 
The long German line then stretched from 
the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains. 
All of Russian Poland lay behind it and 
bending out to the westward it included in 
its bow thousands of square miles of the 
territory of Russia proper. But here it 
stuck. Further advance appeared impos- 
sible. The great bear that had been walking 
backward had turned with teeth and claw 
to bay. The trains of the Trans-Siberian 
Railroad had been rolling westward from 
the Pacific bringing new supplies of cannon, 



the field. When winter fell Russia began 
again preparations to take the offensive. 

At this time the Grand Duke Nicholas 
was recalled from command probably for 
political reasons and the Czar in person took 
his place as nominal commander of the Rus- 
sian armies in Poland and Galicia. Actu- 
ally Generals Brussilov and Kuropatkin di- 
rected the movements of the Russian armies 
in the south and north respectively. Nicho- 
las meantime in Asia Minor, by his swift 
descent upon Erzeroum and Trebizond, gave 
convincing proof that it was for no lack of 
soldierly qualities or skilled generalship that 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Russian troops retreating from Przemysl at the approach of the Austro-German forces 



he had been transferred. His activity in ents two or three times in the course of a 

that region indeed kept the Germans so busy month. It was a melancholy and agonizing 

that they had no time to push an offensive experience for the people residing in the 

campaign in Russia. The winter was not, theatre of war. Early in the struggle the 

however, wholly inactive. In the west the Jews whom for one reason or another the 

armies settled down in the trenches merely Russians suspected of disloyalty were expelled 



keeping 
watch of each 
other with- 
out material 
effort to gain 
ground. But 
in the east 
the hostile 
forces swept 
backward and 
forward pass- 
ing over the 
same ground 
time and 
again so that 
in the reports 
of their oper- 
ations we find 
the same 
town held by 
both belliger- 



altogether 
from that sec- 
tion. More 
than a million 
five hundred 
thousand 
were thus 
driven from 
their homes 
without re- 
sources to 
seek a living 
el s e wh ere. 
But the bar- 
barism of the 
war did not 
fall upon 
these hapless 
H e b r e w s 

Austrians burying Russian dead in Galicia. Note the rough wooden cross ready for alone, tor 

erection when the Ger- 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



:U) 



mans began to march into Russian territory 
the retreating Russians adopted the method 
which caused the downfall of Napoleon a 
century before. The country was thoroughly 
devastated, railroads were torn up, factories 
and stores destroyed, such crops 
as were standing were thrown 
down and made unavailable as 
much to the people of thecountry 
as to the invader. Three million 



features of this war has been the enormous 
use of motor cars for military purposes. But 
in Russia the automobile had never been 
the popular plaything or the useful adjunct 
to industry which it had been in western 
Europe. During the very first cam- 
paign the skilled men in the Russian 
army of the quality necessary for op- 
erating automobiles efficiently were 
put out of action. British, French, 




l] by the wayside in Russia. Soldiers receiving food from a camp kitche 
issary is much less complicated than that of the Germans because the Rus 



civilians fled to the interior of Russia with 
no idea as to what they might do there, but 
hoping for some chance of saving their lives. 
The country thus laid waste comprised a 
strip nearly three hundred miles wide and 
eight hundred miles long — an empire equal 
practically in extent to that comprised be- 
tween Boston and Detroit with Albany and 
Buffalo on the north and Pittsburg and 
Philadelphia on the south as boundary 
points. During the winter the main task 
of the Russian armies was to refit and to 
prepare for a great advance in the spring. 
Their transportation system had broken 
down badly. One of the most striking 



Belgian, and even Japanese military auto- 
mobilists and aviators were sent to take 
charge of the armored motors and aeroplanes. 
By way of recompense for this Russia sent 
six army corps of her surplus troops to France 
who entered that country by way of Mar- 
seilles, creating a tremendous sensation in 
military circles. Even with this addition 
to its expert services Russia was still handi- 
capped by lack of aircraft and observers. 
For this reason the early spring months were 
devoted to feeling out the enemy's lines in 
preparation for the great offensive to come 
later. But these smaller battles, making 
up indeed a very considerable record of their 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





own for the numbers engaged and the num- 
bers sacrificed, had no effect on the progress 
of the war. Indeed the Russians themselves 
at that time, though planning for a spring 
offensive, apprehended that the Germans 
might take the lead with a drive on Petro- 
grad. As it turned out the Germans had 
tried to crack so hard a nut at Verdun that 
they had no mind nor men wherewith to un- 
dertake an offensive elsewhere. 




German transports in the campaign against Warsaw 



ng on Warsaw 

June I, 1916, the great Russian army of not 
less than 1,500,000 men stepped forward 
unitedly in an attack upon the German line. 
That line extended from the front of Riga 
on the Baltic Sea almost directly south to 
Czernowitz in Austria-Hungary. The fight- 
ing was heaviest on the southern half of the 
line on which lay the cities which more 
than once had been the object of savage 
lighting, Pinsk, Dubno, and Tarnopol. Here 
the forces opposed to 
the Russians were 
mainly Au s t r i a n s , 
only two out of ten 
army corps being Ger- 
man. The success of 
the Russians was im- 
mediate and contin- 
uous. The Austrian 
lines were rolled back 
day after day and pris- 
oners by the thousands 
were taken. Checked 
for a time on the River 
Stokhod, they shifted 
the attack to the south 
and captured the con- 
siderable Hungarian 
city of Czernowitz. 
The fortresses at 
Dubno and Lutsk 



THK NATIONS AT WAR 




German troops under General von Hlnilenlmr^ on the march toward \\ arsaw 



which had been lost in the preceding sum- 
mer were retaken, and by the latter part of 
June it appeared that the entire Austrian 
line was to be swept away in one vast 
indiscriminate rout. The number of pris- 
oners taken before the end of June ex- 
ceeded 200,000. Guns, ammunition, and sup- 
plies of every sort were a rich prize to the 
Russians who without manufactures of 
their own found every captured cannon 
precious booty. Be- 
fore the 1st of July 
the crests of the Car- 
pathians saw again the 
standards of Russian 
regiments of which 
they had been cleared 
a year before. 

A correspondent of 
the London Times ac- 
companied General 
Brussilov's columns on 
their successful drive 
into the province of 
Bukovina. He de- 
clared the Russian 
spirit and dash to be 
almost incredible. At 
various points they 
were fighting against 
odds sometimes of 



three to one. By direction of their officers 
they were sparing of their munitions. The 
new Russian rifle was equipped with a thirty- 
inch bayonet fixed to the muzzle of the 
weapon and never taken off. With this in 
the main they charged their enemy and drove 
him from his trenches. Many military 
authorities have given expression to their 
appreciation of the extraordinary gallantry of 
the Russian infantry. They had to go against 




Russians captured at Prasznysz 



222 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




which always pre- 
ceded such an at- 
tack in the western 
theatre of war. 
None the less the 
Russian peasant, 
dull and uncompre- 
hending as he is sup- 
posed to be, re- 
sponded even cheer- 
fully to the appeals 
of his officers and 
with almost Oriental 
fatalism rushed into 
the face of appar- 
ent certain death 
until victory was as- 
sured. That Russia 
exceeded any of thf 
other belligerents, 
perhaps any two 
combined, in the 
number of men cap- 
able of bearing arms 

Copyright by Underwood* Underwood wag k nown at t h e 

Russian Black Sea troops i;oinn into action i • •_ r .1 

beginning or the 
trenches and barbed-wire entanglements with- war. But that in so brief a space of time 
out the aid of the heavy artillery preparation these farmers and peasants could be drilled 




Copyright hy Underwood & Underwood 

How the Russians retreated in haste before the great German advance 



THE NATIONS 



and disciplined until they formed a coherent 
fighting force with the quality 
of veterans amazed the military 
world. 

"The only thing," said a Ger- 
man officer once 
speaking of the Rus j 
sian soldiers in attack, 
"you can do is to 
slaughter them and 
pray that you will 
have ammunition enough 
to keep it up." War- 
time observers speaking 
of the Russian soldier seem 
always to treat of him in 
the mass. They lay stress 
on the individual re- 
sourcefulness and dogged 
pertinacity of the English "Tommy." The 
French "poilu" they find gay, gallant, dash- 
ing in bravery though with a lack of perti- 
nacity. The Italian manifests great ferocity 
but is easily discouraged. The German will 
go anywhere his officers will lead him — 
but he must be led. Discipline has driven 
individual initiative out of the German head. 



\\ A R 



223 




The King, Queen, and Crown Prince ot Roumania. 
Roumania's entrance into the war on the side of the Allies 
and her spectacular invasion of Transylvania in September, 
I916, were the outcome of two years' negotiations 




The importance of Yilna. This bridge over the River Vilna is the only bridge in a radius of 100 miles that is strong enough to 
bear the heavy artillery which is so strong an element of German military power 



224 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



But when the first-hand observers come to 
speak of the Russians, they tell of their 
bovine patience and fatalism but lay chief 
stress upon their infinitude of numbers — 
their slow-moving, terrifying, irresistible 
mass. The French leap to the charge like 
an avalanche. The Russians advance like a 
resistless glacier. You think of them in 



indomitable will — a real man of blood and 
iron this, best worthy of that title in Prussia 
since Bismarck. Nor could there be any 
thought of sending German regiments from 
France to the hard-pressed Austrians. There 
Verdun was holding the Teutonic foe in play 
with a vengeance. Of little strategic value 
in itself, this French fortress had enlisted 



. -<-? 



*r^ :S 



7: 








*vy > 






t w -*- 






'd* *:■ 







5; 



« 



rwN^ 







lines ten or twelve deep, line after line, and 
all with the fearlessness that fatalism alone 
breeds. 

All the way from Riga to the Roumanian 
line this remorseless pressure was being ap- 
plied to the Teutonic lines. It was most 
savage in the south where the troops of 
General Brussilov were in contact with the 
Austrians. There could at this time be no 
reenforcement of the troops of Francis 
Joseph from the German lines, for in the 
north Kuropatkin was pressing hotlv on 
grizzled old Von Hindenburg, who stood 
savagely at bay while the population of 
Berlin was childishly driving nails into his 
wooden effigy in token of admiration for his 



the bloody efforts of France and Germany in a 
struggle which had already endured for 
months, and in fact outlasted the second year 
of the war. Its reduction and its defence 
had become a matter of pride, a fetish, a 
religious obsession almost to the two warring 
foes. "If we take Verdun we win the war," 
said the Germans, though no military strate- 
gist has been able to point out the reason 
for such a belief. "They shall not pass!" 
was the French cry when the assault on 
Verdun was mentioned, and the French made 
their contention good. Moreover, they held 
so many of the Teutons in the salient of 
St. Mihiel and the hills about Verdun that 
the endangered Austrians cried in vain for 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



22$ 



aid from that section. It was becoming 
apparent to the onlooking world that at last 
the Allied campaign was being urged offen- 
sively along all the fronts at once as though 
directed by a single master mind. 

It was, indeed, in the very course of per- 
fecting that coherence of action among the 
Allies that Great Britain lost her greatest 



of Lord Kitchener's death nothing is known 
nor was his body ever recovered. 

More than any man in England at the 
outset of the war, Kitchener foresaw its 
proportions and duration. Three years he 
thought would be its least duration, and, be- 
ing entrusted with building up the British 
army, he built it with a view to a long-drawn 




Serbian infantrymen arrive in Warsaw 

military figure of modern times. Field Marshal 
Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener, British Secre- 
tary for War, "K of K." as the man in the 
street loved to call him in abbreviation of his 
earlier title Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. 
It was illustrative of the far-spread nature of 
this war that this soldier whose fame had 
been won in South Africa should meet death 
in the icy seas off the Orkneys while en route 
for Petrograd to consult about Russian oper- 
ations in Poland and Galicia. His ship, the 
British cruiser Hampshire, struck a mine 
June 5th, and went down with all on board 
except a warrant officer and eleven seamen, 
who were picked up later on a raft nearly 
dead from exposure. Of the precise manner 



Copyright bj 1 n 
in time to check the German attack 

struggle. ■ The impatient public, and a part 
of the press, attacked him vehemently for 
deliberation, for stubbornly refusing to rush 
half-trained troops to the front, for putting 
solid organization and adequate equipment 
ahead of action in the field. But he beat 
down opposition and attack and before his 
death saw his policy on the threshold of 
success and already commanding universal 
approval. It was, doubtless, a tribute to his 
influence, not only in Britain but in all the 
allied countries, that the plan of joint and 
simultaneous offensive by all the powers 
which he had started for Petrograd to urge, 
was followed vigorously after his death. 

In the two months of the Russian drive 



226 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Resting among the dead. Austro-Hungarian soldiers detailed to clear 
the field after a battle sit down on a hillside for a brief rest, while the dead Rus- 
sians lie all around them 

that preceded the second anniversary of 
the outbreak of the war, the forces of the 
Czar carried all before them along that 
section of the line which was selected for 
an advance. Gen- 
eral Brussilov had 
been a cavalry 
leader in the earlier 
days of service, and 
in pushing back the 
Teutons in this cam- 
paign brought that 
arm of the service 
into active play, al- 
most for the first 
time in this war 
which had been 
fought mainly by 
artillery and infan- 
try. His movements 
were swift and un- 
expected. He em- 
ployed to the fullest 
the now established 
tactics ot first over- 
whelming his en- 
emy's trenches with 
floods of shell and 
shrapnel. The vol- 



ume and steady continuation of his artillery 
fire told convincingly of the Russian recog- 
nition of their blunder of the year before 
when they tried to carry this same territory 
with an insufficient supply of 
ammunition. But he followed 
his artillery attack not only with 
infantry assaults, but with cav- 
alry raids that turned his en- 
emy's flanks, menaced his com- 
munications, and left to his shat- 
tered legions no time for rest or 
for repairs. The extended field 
wherein Brussilov commanded 
was as full of change as a kalei- 
doscope. It was the very an- 
tithesis of the area of battle in 
France and in Flanders. 

The Austrian provinces which 
felt most heavily the force of the 
Russian rally and advance are 
known as Galicia and Bukovina. 
Virtually they are a single geo- 
graphical region cut off from the 
rest of Austria and Hungary by 
the high walls of the Carpathian 
Mountains. Their population 
contains many Slavs, Czechs, Poles, and Cer- 
vaks, and it was a significant fact that among 
the prisoners taken by the Russians were 
very few of these nationalities. The reason 




Hundreds of Russians in one grave. A corner of a great trench dug on a battlefield in Galicia, 
wherein large numbers of Russians were buried together 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



227 



for their absence seems to have been that 
because of their manifest sympathy for their 
brother Slavs in the Russian armies, they 
were sent away from that battle front as 
untrustworthy. The troops of which they 
formed a great part were employed on the 
Italian front, because between them and the 
Italians was no racial sympathy. 

Czernowitz, the capital of Bukovina, fell 
into Russian occupation June 16, 1916. 
Though a considerable city it is singularly 



ress in that section of Hungary was un- 
checked. The River Pruth was crossed with 
the Austrians flying in dismay. Kolomea, a 
notable railroad centre, was taken. Kuro- 
patkin in the north was pushing back Yon 
Hindenburg as successfully as Brussilov in 
the south. Yet it was the successes of the 
latter that rendered possible the advance of 
the former, for the whole Teutonic line, 
extending from north to south, rested like a 
balanced pole upon the 




Field gun 



pathians, being reached by a single railroad 
only. This railroad the Russians cut early 
in the siege, not only isolating the city, but 
cutting off the only practical line of retreat 
for its defenders. They might indeed flee 
through the steep and narrow Carpathian 
passes pursued by Cossacks, but in the end 
they determined to surrender and join the 
rapidly growing colony of captive Austrians 
within the Russian lines. It is interesting, 
by the way, to note that, including this 
garrison of Czernowitz, the forces under 
General Brussilov took during their nine 
weeks' campaign in Galicia and Bukovina 
358,000 officers and men, 405 cannon, 1,326 
machine guns, and a vast amount of other 
material of war. 

After the fall of Czernowitz Russian prog- 



back the latter, or weakened them by his 
constant attacks, the pole would necessarily 
be drawn to the westward lest it fall alto- 
gether. When the second year of the war 
ended the Russians were once more within 
striking distance of Lemberg, an Austrian 
city of enormous strategical value, from 
which they had been driven a year before. 

Austria was now in a dire state. The terri- 
tory she had lost was not material to the 
progress of the war, but her losses in men and 
material threatened her with complete col- 
lapse. Her own reserves were exhausted. 
Her military authorities in June vainly ap- 
pealed to the government for authority to 
call into active service men of the class be- 
tween fifty-six and sixty years of age. She 
could hope nothing more from Germany, for 



228 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




r of bo 



Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

; dropped in Warsaw hy German aviators 



bv this time the great Allied offen- 
sive on the western front had begun 
and the Germans were even check- 
ing their attack on Verdun to meet 
this new menace. In the south 
Austria had to meet the steady pres- 
sure of the Italians, who, long held 
in check by the precipitous barrier 
of the Dolomites, had by this time 
learned to negotiate those mountain 
passes and were threatening Gor- 
izia, the gate to Trieste. Moreover, 
late in July it became apparent that 
the Allies were not going to leave 
Servia to her fate. The shattered 
army of that nation, having been 
reorganized on the Island of Corfu, 
its wounds bound up, its depleted 
ranks filled, its equipment renewed, 
had been transferred to Salonika. 
There, too, were gathering British, 
French, and Italian troops so that 
bv the 1st of August, the beginning 
of the third year of the war, not less 
than 600,000 Allied troops were 
ready to begin the great drive 
through Servia to the Hungarian 
frontier. 

Never in the course of the war 
had the outlook been so black for 
the Dual Monarchy and for the 
Teutonic alliance as then. There 
were constant rumors that Hun- 
garv would split away from Austria, 




Cop} riyht by Underwood & Underwood 

Ten thousand Russian prisoners in one cohrmn captured in one of the battles in Galicia 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



229 



dismember the Dual Monarchy, and 
sue for a separate and independent 
peace. Again it was suggested that 
both Austria and Hungary might 
sue for peace leaving Germany to 
continue the conflict. Both rumors 
were scouted at both Vienna and 
Berlin, and the year ended without 
either being given substance. But 
the situation was unquestionably 
one of the gravest import to the 
Central Powers. With all her won- 
derful sacrifices of treasure and of 
men Imperial Germany could not 
always go on upholding weak and 
inefficient allies. But for military 
commanders, and tens of thousands 
of men sent into Galicia, Austria 
would have been crippled by the 
first Russian drive, and obliterated 
by the second. But even the amaz- 
ing resourcefulness and self-sacrifice 
of the German nation did not seem 
able to keep this record up long. 

The persistency with which the 
Russians returned to the attack after 
two great and far reaching defeats 
caused the admiration of all the 
military world. Not the officers 
alone, but the troops in the ranks 
manifested this constant aversion to 
any admission of defeat. On the 
retreat from Warsaw the corres- 
pondent of the London Times 




cillery fighting 



etween Rn 




Russian prisoners at Dobcritz, near Berli 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




GENERAL ALEXEI A. BRUSSILOV 

Commander of the Russian drive against the Austrians in southern Russia, Bukovina, and Galicia which heralded the 

concerted offensive of the Allies on the eastern, western and southern fronts in the summer ot 1916 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



231 



thought to test the fighting spirit of all of 
the retreating Russian soldiers. He de- 
scribes the interview thus : 

At one point in the road I stopped the 
motor to talk with the soldiers of the Thirty- 
fifth Corps, the last unit of which had just 
crossed the river that morning and had been 
badly dusted. The colonel of the regiment 
was sitting on his horse in the middle of a 
field with notebook in hand checking up his 
losses. The soldiers of his command were 
lying along the grassy bank by the roadside, 
many of them falling asleep the moment they 
sat down. A field kitchen was halted in the 
road, and the few soldiers that were not 
asleep were lining up to get what was per- 
haps their first ration since the night before. 
Many were in bloody bandages and all worn 
and haggard. "Here," I thought, "one will 
find the morale of the Russians at its lowest 
ebb. These men have been fighting for 
days and have lost." So I called up a great 
strapping private soldier. Wearily he got to 




his feet and came over to the side of the 
motor. His face was gray with fatigue and 
his eyes glassy for want of rest. "How do 
you feel now about the war?" I asked him. 
"Do you want peace?" He looked at me in 
a dazed kind of way and replied as he shuffled 
his feet uneasily: "We are all very tired." 
"But, still, what do you want to do about 
the war?" I persisted. The Russians are 
not quick to reply to questions under any 
circumstances. For a long time the tired 
soldier looked at me, and then for the second 
time he said: "I am very tired. We are all 
very tired." "Well, then," I said, "do you 
want to make peace and leave the Germans in 
possession of Warsaw?" For a long time 
he stood in the hot afternoon sun looking at 
the dust in the road and then replied: "I 
am very tired. So are we all. The Germans 
are taking Warsaw to-day. This is not as it 
should be. I think I am a better soldier than 
the German. With rifles and shells we can 
always beat him. It is not right that we 
should give up Warsaw." He paused for a 
moment and then looked up with his eyes 
flashing as he finished in one quick burst 
"Never! I am tired, but I want to go back 
and fight some more. We cannot leave the 
Germans in Warsaw." 

Whether or not this soldier was the type 
of the Russian under arms can only be con- 
jectured from the fact that a very few weeks 
after this defeat the Russian army gathered 
itself togetherand began again its march to 
the westward, a march that had not ended 
when the second 
year of the war 
reached its close. 




Polish Farmhouse fired by retreating Russians 



>3 2 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





A devi 
Gal 



(In- highl} efficient Russian Commissary department. Citric being driv 
Beef m this form requires no wagons for carriage and after ir is used lea 



i Russian army whin it was in 
empties" to lie brought back 



CHRONOLOGY OF PERIOD TREATED IN CHAPTER VIII 



( Vfter the fall of Warsaw, on August 5, 1915, there was a 
steady retreat on the part of the Russians until mid-winter; 
then the belligerents rested on their arms until the commence- 
ment of Brussilov's counter offensive beginning in June, 1916. 
During this period of comparative inaction there were but few 
events of sufficient importance to chronicle.) 
August 10-12. Rapid advance of the Germans along the 

Bug River to Sledice sixty miles east of Warsaw. 
August 16. Russian line broken at Bialystok with evacua- 
tion of the town. 
August 17. Kovoro occupied by Germans. 
August 2s- Brest-I.itowsk taken by Germans. 
September 2. House-to-house fighting in Gorodno, which is 

taken by the Germans. 
September 1-10. Russian turns at Tarnopol and Trembowla 

and captures 33,000 Austrians and fifty machine guns. 
September 15. Tinsk occupied by Germans. 
September 18. Vilna tails and Russian army narrowly escapes. 
September 23. Russians reoccupy Lutsk. 
October 18. Germans attempt to envelop Riga. 
November 10. Russians relieve Riga. 
A member 20. Russians successful on the River Styr. 
December 11. Russians attacking in Volhynia. 
December 28. Russians attack fiercely on the Dneister, 

marking the beginning of renewed fighting in that section. 
January 2, 1916. Russians advancing on Czetnowitz. 
January 12. Russians resume offensive in Bukovina. 
January 20. Russians still advancing in Czernowitz. 
February 8. Russians active at Tarnopol. 
February II. Russian successes continue in Galicia. 
March 19. Germans repulse Russian attacks east of Vilna; 

nearly ten thousand Russians killed at Lake Narocz. 



March 2;. Russian armies in Galicia and Bukovina continue 

to advance. German line pierced in the Riga region. 
April 12. Germans repulsed near Pinsk. 

April 29. Germans take Russian p'ositions near Lake Narocz 
with nearly six thousand prisoners. 

(/«(« 5' The Russian offensive under General Brtissilov 
began on this date with assaults against the Austrian line 
on a front of 335 miles running south from the Pinsk marshes. 
It ultimately developed into an assault against the 450-mile 
front of the Germans north of Pinsk. More than 2,400,000 
Icutons were involved of whom 600,000 were put out of 
action largely by capture. The purpose of the drive was 
the destruction of the feutonic armies, not the capture of 
strategic points. Nevertheless, by August, fully 7,000 
square miles of Russian territory had been recovered from 
the Icutons, and Cossacks bad made their way into Hun- 
gary through rhe Carpathian Passes.) r 

June 3-12. Russian offensive captures 85,000 Austrians, takes 
Dubno, and invests Czernowitz. 

June 14. Russians attack the Austrian centre at Buczacs. 

June 17. Russians under General Lechitsky capture Czern- 
owitz. 

June 25. Russians clear Bukovina of Austrian defenders. 

June 28. Serious Austrian defeat at Kolomea; Russians pass 
the Stirpa. 

July 3. Russians within twenty miles of Lemberg. 

July 6. Teuton losses before the Brtissilov drive fixed officially 
at 500,000. 

July 7. Russians begin offensive on the Riga front. 

July It. General Kuropatkin attacks Von Hindenburg in 
the Riga section, penetrating his lines five miles. 

July 2S. Russians take Brody. 

July 29. Report that Austrians are forced to bring Turkish 
troops to their aid in Hungary, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Conquering the Alps. The Alpini at the foot of the Dolomites 



, Copyright by Brown Eros. 



CHAPTER I X 



the war in the balkans — failure of british diplomacy 

bulgaria enters the war the bulgar-teuton invasion of 

servia destruction of the servian army —the plague in 

servia — Italy's long hesitation — progress of Italian 
campaign —fall of gori/.ia the complicated cask of greece 



'N THE last analysis 
the war which engulfed 
the most highly civi- 
lized nations of Europe 
sprung from the jeal- 
ousies and the rival 
ambitions of the halt- 
civilized peoples who 
make up the Balkan 
States — what the 
diplomatists call the 
cauldron of Europe. 
SlaY and Magyar and 
Czech m those moun- 
tainous and turbulent 
regions, in many of 
which a nomad's rifle 
is his only law, and a 
lllside hut of boulders 
the type of home, 
struggled for the mas- 
tery, and plotted their 
alliance s w i t h the 
greater powers to the 
who m turn thought only of 
them up. Servia blocked the 
way of Austria to the ^Egean Sea — hence 
the Austrian attack on that country which 
precipitated the whole conflict. Servia 
blocked the German path to Constantinople, 
and William II, full of his great adventure 
of making Turkey practically a province of 
the German empire, lent ready aid to the 
Austrian assault on Servia if indeed he did 
not inspire it. 

Classed among the Balkan States are Servia, 
Bulgaria, Roumania, Montenegro, Albania, 
and Macedonia. The Powers of Europe 
by solemn treaty had created two addi- 
tional states, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but 
Austria had later calmly annexed these two 




northward, 
swallowing 



states to her dominion and tin- readiness of 
Germany at the time to back her up to tin 
point of a general war had stifled protest from 
the other powers. Turkey, the immediate 
neighbor of the Balkan States, if itself not to 
be classed as one, entered the war in Novem- 
ber, 1914. Greece, whose interests were 
vitally concerned, managed to stay out of the 
struggle until after the close of its second year. 
Her people were strongly in favor of joining 
the Allies, but the queen, wife of King Con- 
stantine, was a Hohenzollern princess, sister 
of Kaiser Wilhelm, and her influence over 
her husband long offset public opinion. 

From the very first days of the war the 
diplomatic efforts of the belligerent parties 
were exerted to the utmost to secure the sup- 
port of these states. Turkey, as we have 
seen, was early won over by the Germans. 
Bulgaria with an army in time of war of 
about 600,000 men was a prize worth strug- 
gling for, but like Turkey, was secured by 
the Teutons, declaring war in October, 191 5. 
The Bulgarian premier gave a series of plaus- 
ible reasons for the choice, the chief being 
dread of Russian aggressions after the war 
should the Allies be victorious. The real 
reason, however, seems to have been that 
at the moment the fortunes of war were 
strongly on the Teutonic side. The pro- 
longed delay of Great Britain in getting into 
the war on land had permitted the Teutons 
to score an almost uninterrupted series of 
victories which seriously affected the prestige 
of the Allies among nations still hesitant 
as to the side with which to cast their lot. 
It was this that lost Bulgaria to the Allies. 
and kept Greece so long uncommitted. 
Though not within the scope of this volume, 
it may be noted that in August, 1916, a f ter 
the war had continued more than two years. 



236 

Roumania cast her 
strength with the 
Allies — for the obvious 
reason that at that 
moment their cause 
looked by far the 
brighter. 

In the earlier days 
of the war Servia, 
which had furnished 
the excuse for the con- 
flict, suffered less than 
any of the participants. 
Though promptly in- 
vaded by the Austrians 
her army was adequate 
for the protection of 
her territory, and when 
the growling of the 
Russian bear in the 
Passes of the Carpathi- 
ans forced the Aus- 
trians to protect them- 
selves in that quarter, 
the Serbs in their turn 
took the offensive and 
inflicted acrushing 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




General Sarrail 



commander of the 
Balkans 



defeat upon the Aus- 
trians in the Servian 
mountains. That vie- 
to ry demonstrated 
that Austria was in- 
capable of dealing with 
both Russia and Servia 
at once, and put an end 
to further invasion of 
the latter's territory 
for some months. 

Early in the fall of 
191 5, however, it be- 
came apparent to the 
diplomats at Berlin 
and Vienna that if 
they were to hold Bul- 
garia even neutral they 
must prove their ability 
topayherprice. After 
the second Balkan war 
Bulgaria had been 
despoiled of territory 
which could be re- 
stored only by robbing 
Servia. ButServia 
was still unsubdued. 



LENGTH OF RIFLE 



LENGTH OF BAYONET 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 



GREAT BRITAIN 




Comparative lengths of rifles and bayonets used in the Great War. The kind of rifle used is indicated under the name of each 

country 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



237 




A Serbian gun silenced. Tl 



Serbian resistance was gallant and stubborn, but they were 
pestilence as well as by superior numbers and equipment 



.!]■) n..hl |.\ Ain'Ti .i- IV ■.'. A-. .-m i.iti. .11 

equipped and demoralized by 



Clearly if Bulgaria was to be influenced 
this state had to be crushed. Moreover, 
Germany wanted a direct line to Con- 
stantinople. The Allies were menacirfg Gal- 
lipoli, and for its defence guns and munitions 
must be shipped south from Essen. The 
campaign in Mesopotamia and the attack 
on the Suez Canal compelled the establish- 
ment of a line of transportation which could 
not be maintained with the Servian army in 
being. 

It was therefore determined at Berlin to 
withdraw troops from whatever points could 
spare them and drive through Servia with 



the end in view of opening the road to Con- 
stantinople. By doing this a rich agricul- 
tural country would be opened for the supply 
of Germany, already feeling the pinch of the 
British food blockade. Arms, munitions, and 
reinforcements could be sent to the Turks 
at Gallipoli and in Asia Minor. Egypt, 
Persia, and India might be attacked. Bul- 
garia, Macedonia, Albania, and Turkey would 
be brought into immediate military touch 
with Germany, and even Roumania might 
be won to the Teutonic side. 

Accordingly General von Mackensen was 
recalled from Russia to lead the invading 




Serbian women burying their dead. Every man, woman, and child in Serbia took some part in the heroic national 

resistance 



238 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Allied camp at Salonika as seen from an aeroplane. This camp is in the rear of the outposts that guard the territory held 
hv the Allies around Salonika. The hills in the distance are heavily fortified 



Teuton armies. Early in October he entered 
Servian territory with a force for which the 
defenders were no match. Because of the 
nature of the country reliance was placed 
largely upon artillery and the wretched Serbs 
were literally blown out of their land. While 
the Teutons were advancing from the north, 
the Bulgars, now at the end of their hesita- 
tion, also declared war and pushed in from 
the east. The Serbians caught between 
two enemies, 
and outnum- 
bered at every 
point, had 
nothing for it 
but stead y 
retreat. Bel- 
grade, their 
capital, fell to 
the Teuton 
arms. Nish, 
their earlier 
capital, was 
taken by the 
Bulgars. Lit- 
tle Monte- 
negro, with 
its army of 
30,000 men, 
was drawn in- 
to the conflict 
on the Servian 
side, but 
was quickly 
snuffed out 




Roumanians more Latin than Balkan. They claim that Roumania is a Latin 
community left along the Black Sea and the Danube, and that its people are 
descendants of Roman legionaries. Their language is essentially Latin, 
cally they resemble one type of Italians 



like a candle by the blast of Von Mack- 
ensen's guns. By December 1st, prac- 
tically all of Servia had been subdued and 
her army driven to the seashore, through 
Albania, where it rested in hope of aid from 
the Allies. 

That hope was not wholly disappointed, 
although the action of the Allies in viewing 
from afar the martyrdom of Servia without 
the extension of a helping hand was one of 

the tragedies 
of the war — 
and a blunder 
asweJl. When 
the determi- 
nation of Ger- 
many to crush 
Servia and to 
b ri n g B u 1- 
garia into the 
war as an ac- 
tive belliger- 
ent became 
known the 
question 01 
sending an ex- 
pedition to 
their imper- 
illed ally's aid 
was discussed 
in the military 
councils of 
England and 
France. The 
former calmly 



Ph 3 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



239 



frowned upon it. The diplomatic problems 
involved were perplexing. Italy, which had 
now declared war upon Austria, was not eager 
to have Servian power built up, lest that 
country annex Albania upon which the 
Italians themselves had designs. Moreover, 
an allied expedition to Servia's aid could 
only advance through Greek territory from 
Salonika, which the Allies already held in 



finally won. Early in October the Gulf of 
Salonika became crowded with transports 
and merchantmen, flying the flags of all 
nations but all engaged in transporting 
troops and munitions for Servian relief. 
The long, stone quays of the Greek port 
resounded to the tread of French and English 
infantry, landed in flat defiance of neutrality 
but apparently with the warm approval of 




' xLjm "^ ^jwiBpEV ;IES : 



French transports and cavalry horses after disembarkation. This shows a small 
horses that were poured out of the transports at 

flat defiance of the neutral rights of Greece. 
The statesmen of Great Britain who had gone 
to war because of Germany's violation ot the 
neutrality of Belgium felt naturally nervous 
about their own continued violation of the 
neutrality of Greece. However, they deferred 
to these scruples only long enough to make 
their expedition for the relief of the Serbs too 
late to be of service. 

It was at the insistence of Premier Bnand 
of France and of General Joffre, who crossed 
the Channel to plead his case, that British 
consent to a Servian relief expedition was 



:orner of the sre; 
Salonika 



the Greek people if not that of their king. 
Up a Greek railroad, about sixty miles, the 
troops were rushed into Macedonia and to 
Monastir where they effected a junction 
with the remnant of the Servian army. In 
all 200,000 or more Allied troops were thus 
sent to the southern end of Servia. They 
attempted no reconquest of the territory 
taken by the Teutons, but at the end of the 
war's second year were merely holding their 
ground — doubtless in part as an object-lesson 
to Greece and Roumania still hesitating as 
to the flag under which they would enlist. 



240 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Conquering the Alps. The ascent of the Dolomites 



Photo by Brown Bros. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



241 




Serbian volunteers who had no rifles. 
They were mostly old men, and were em- 
ployed in trench digging. They went with 
the army when it evacuated Monastir, and being total! 
soldiers. Many died by the way 



How valuable was that object-lesson was 
demonstrated in August, 1916, when Rou- 
mania came over to the Allies, and King 
Constantine, his power destroyed, was forced 
to yield to the war sentiment of his people. 
At one time there had been serious criti- 
cism of the tactics of the Allies in entering 
upon the difficult field of Balkan diplomacy 
and war at all. It was urged, with some 
reason, that the British might better pour all 
their troops, as fast as available, into the 
battlefields of France and Belgium where it 
seemed that the final issue of the war would 
be determined. Mainly in order to guard 
India the British Government repelled this 
suggestion, fortunately for the Allies. In- 
deed it would have been more fortunate had 
there been no such hesi- 
tation as was shown 
in the expedition to the 
Dardanelles and the 
abortive effort to aid 
the Serbs before they 
were annihilated. For 
a more decisive front 
shown in that section in 
191 5 would have kept 
Bulgaria neutral, or per- 
haps brought her to 
the Allies' side as 

Roumania Came a year An Italian siege gun used to batter d 



later. Servia 
would have been 
saved and these 
three Balkan 
States, acting in 
unison, would 
have blocked 
the German 
march to Con- 
stantinople, and 
have kept Aus- 
tria so busy with 
her own defence 
in the south that 
the Russians 
would infallibly 
have marched 
without effective 
opposition 
through her 
northern prov- 
inces into Ger- 
many. As it 
was the belated 
activity of the 
Allies due to Premier Briand and General Joff re 
was the sole cause of Roumania's accession to 
the Allied cause, which at the time changed 
the whole prospect of the war in the Balkan 
regions. Napoleon said that God was al- 
ways with the heaviest battalions. How- 
ever that may be, hesitating neutrals close to 
the battle zone are always with the side that 
seems to be winning. 

Comparatively little is yet known of the 
conditions of warfare in the Servian cam- 
paigns. The regions were unfamiliar to the 
average citizen of other lands. The popula- 
tion was sparse, with little associa- 
tion with the outerworld, destitute in 
the main of newspapers or means 
making their sufferings known. 



unequipped, suffered more than the regular 




Copyright by Underwood & 1 h 

n Austrian concrete trenches 



242 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



243 




A cheerful fugitive. At least 70 years old, this man was em- 
ployed in the transport service. His job was to lead two donkeys 
laden with shells for held guns 



The war correspondents of English-speaking 
lands had their attention riveted on the 
struggle in France, or at the most took a few 
days from observation of the wrestle for 
Galicia between Brussilov and Von Hin- 
denburg to run down into Servia and 
observe what they thought was a mere 
side action of the war but which was in 
fact the murder of a nation. Moreover, 
the censorship was applied in Servia with 
more rigidity and less intelligence than 
in any other battle area — though the 
follies and futilities of the censors were 
notorious everywhere. 

From the information which filtered 
out from this cauldron of plague and 
battle it became in time known to the 
world that in no other section had the 
horrors of war been so frightful; no- 
where else the proportion of wanton 
sacrifice to cruelty, carelessness, and 
ignorance so great. The fighting was 
fierce, but so had it been on other 
fronts. The attendant barbarities, the 
destruction of the homes, the devastation 
of fields, the exile of peaceful folks to 
meet starvation and death were shocking 
but so had they been in Belgium and in 
Poland. But Servia suffered a martyrdom 
all her own in the scourge of the plague 
that swept over the land after the armies 
of the Teutons and Bulgars had flooded it 
with blood. 



They say the Austrians left the seeds 
of typhus in Servia — not with malignant 
purpose, of course, but as a result of 
insanitary camp and hospital 
management. It is a fact that 
when the Servians first retired 
from Valjevo they left it free of 
disease. When the fortune of 
war turned their way, as it 
did after the first Austrian 
invasion, they returned to find 
Valjevo harboring 3,000 Aus- 
trian wounded, many suffering 
from typhus. An account in 
the London Tijnes says: 

"In one building, quite a 
new school, 150 dead Austrians were 
found in the cellars, and men and cattle 
were buried indiscriminately in the 
courtyards adjacent many of them 
barely covered by a foot of earth. From 
Valjevo the infection spread like fire, 







The monument mark, where 4,000 Serbs fell in the battle 
for Monastir in the first Balkan war in 1912. The fighting 
in November, 1915, pas r < I over the same ground 



^44 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




View of Monastir from a minaret. It is a picturesque old city, the architecture being a stranni mixture, with the Turkish influ- 
ence predominating. The tall, white towers are minarets of mosques 



being carried by soldiers returning to their 
homes and by travelers on the railway. In a 
few weeks the country had become a seeth- 
ing mass of misery and pestilence. 

"The conditions were appalling. The 
number of patients was beyond all hospital 
accommodation, and doctors and nurses were 
dying with their patients. In the Nish Hos- 
pital the patients were lying three and four in 
one bed, with one covering for the whole, while 
others lay on the floor, and even underthebeds. 
At one time there were 700 patients to 200 
beds, with only two doctors, one of them a 
young Swiss, who very shortly after fell ill. 
There were no sanitary arrangements. 

"And all the time the infection was 
being carried about by soldiers returning 
from the army, by peasants wandering 
at large, and, above 
all, by the travelers 
on the railways. 
The trains were 
crowded with all 
sorts of people — 
peasants in hlthv 
clothes, rags, and 
goatskins, wander- 
ing aimlessly along 
corridors, looking in 
vain for accom- 
modation, and 
all the carriages reek- 
ing of naphthalene." 




A veteran of two wars in Salonika harbor 



In time it may be known, approximately, 
it can never be known certainly, whether 
weapons of war or disease claimed the more 
victims in Servia. In July, 191 5, it was esti- 
mated that more than 100,000 had perished 
of typhus and cholera. In this moment of 
dreadful agony the people of the United States 
responded noblv not only with offerings, but 
with personal service to the call of distress. 
The activities of the Red Cross were mar- 
velous. Young men and women, not doctors 
or students of medicine alone, but youth of 
all professions who w T ished to help volun- 
teered for Servian service. This extract 
from a letter of a clergyman gives some idea 
of what they had to face: 

"They found 1,400 desperately sick and 
wounded men 
— Servian soldiers 
and Austrian 
prisoners. These 
had been carried to 
two dirty tobacco 
warehouses; 150 of 
them were lying on 
mattresses (two and 
three to a mattress). 
The rest were on 
the reeking floor — 
1,400 men in stoic 
silence, suffering 
from gun-shot 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



-45 




Sertii 



an volume 



i at roll c 
to carry 



ill. These were some of the many tor whom no weapons could be provided, but they were organized 
supplies. Often they picked up guns of dead comrades and joined the fighting 



wounds, shrapnel, and bursting shell. Many 
were without portions of their bodies; all 
wounds were infected, not having been 
dressed since the first rough aid on the battle- 
field davs since. 

"But this was not the worst. Lying in 
filth, unattended and half-starved, germs of 
the most deadly epidemics were appearing — 
smallpox, diphtheria, relapsing fever, ty- 
phoid, and typhus. Wounded soldiers from 
the battleline and sick soldiers from the bar- 
racks were tottering into the tobacco ware- 
houses, fifty, one hundred, and as high as 
two hundred and fifty a day. 

"The conditions of that pest-camp cannot 
be told, but this can — that not one of those 
twelve women and six men faltered or turned 
back. With a laugh that was nearer a sob, 
they rolled up their 
sleeves and bent to 
their task, making a 
hospital out of 
nothing, classifying 
the unclassable, saw- 
ing up boxes for 
splints, stoking old 
rusty boilers to se- 
cure hot water, per- 
forming miracles in 
the way of opera- 
tions and cures. 

"They were en- 
gulfed; they were 




An Italian battleship in Saloniki harbor 



overwhelmed. Every nurse became a 'lady 
of the lamp.' They were cooks, sisters, min- 
istering angels, priests, undertakers. Mo- 
hammedans, unused to honesty or sympathy 
in women, reached out feeble hands to touch 
their garments. Soldiers cut ofF their prized 
buttons and officers their stars and chevrons 
that they might press them into the hand that 
cooled their brow or dressed the grievous 
wound." 

Human courage, gentleness, and sympathy 
were never put to a more severe test than 
in thetyphus hospitals of Servia, nor was there 
ever a more noble response. In this response 
the United States, too often condemned in 
Europe as a land of gross materialism, took 
a leading part. 

Italy entered the war by a declaration 
against Austria — 
not Germany, on the 
23d of May, 1915. 
Nothing in the 
campaigns her 
armies fought was 
more dramatic than 
the fight made in 
her parliament and 
her public places to 
drag her into the 
struggle. Super- 
ficially it appeared 
that she was mor- 
ally bound to co- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Conquering the Alps. Mass for the Italian troops above the sea 



Photo by Brown Rros. 



THE NATIONS 



operate with the Teutons. For Italy had 
long been a member of the Triple Alliance, 
which bound her to Germany and Austria. 
But that Alliance was essentially defensive. 
It provided that all should rally to the de- 
fence of any one member that might be 
attacked from without. It was the claim 
of those Italians who sought to force the 
war upon a hesi- 
tant Parliament 
and an unwilling 
king, that Aus- 
tria's ultimatum 
to Servia was in 
effect an aggres- 
sion, an incite- 
ment to war which 
no one member 
of the Alliance 
had a right to 
offer without con- 
sultation with the 
others. The plea 
of the war party 
in Italy was that 
Austria was not 
attacked but was 
the assailant, and 
that as a party to 
a purely defensive 
agreement Italy 
was not morally 
obligated to come 
to her aid. 

A second cause 
of complaint was 
that Article VIII 
of the Triple 
Alliance bound 
Austria to refrain 
from any occupa- 
tion of Balkan 
territory without 

agreement with Italy and the payment to 
her of compensation. Austria, however, in- 
vaded Servia without agreement with or even 
notice to Italy, and though demand for 
compensation was instantly made the nature 
and intent of the payment were debated so 
long by the Austrians that the Italians con- 
cluded it would never be paid. Finally 
the Italian advocates of war contended 
that Austrian preparations for war upon 
Russia were in fact a provocation to the 
latter nation to declare war, and that 
Italy could not be bound by her agreement 



AT WAR 
Austria 



247 



against 



R 



ussian at- 




ndbi 



to aid 
tack. 

These were the technical arguments em- 
ployed to force Italy into battle. They were 
the pleas which Italian statesmen put for- 
ward in defence of their action against the 
criticism of the world. They were bitterly 
denounced by the Teutonic Allies as being 
made in bad faith, 
and indeed they 
were ratherthe 
excuses for, than 
the true incen- 
tives to, the action 
finally taken by 
the Italian nation. 
For Italy, like 
France, had her 
lost provinces. 
Her Alsace-Lor- 
raine are Trent 
and Triest, the 
one lying in the 
Dolomite Alps a 
scant forty miles 
north of the 
Austro-I t alia n 
boundary, the lat- 
ter a noble port 
at the head of the 
Adriatic, which 
has had much to 
do with the de- 
cadence of the 
maritime glories 
of Venice, which 
it faces across that 
sun-lit sea. For 
the recovery of 
these lost prov- 
inces the Italian 
heart has yearned 
for half a century, 
and the instant action of the army when war 
was declared was to plunge into the craggy 
ranges of the Dolomites in the effort to re- 
claim "Italia Irredenta," as that region is 
called in Italy. Moreover, modern Italy has 
a legacy of hate against theAustnanswhich no 
formal Alliance could ever obliterate. Until 
1868 the military thrall of Austria was upon 
the northern provinces of Italy, and Milan 
and Venice for years lived in sullen resentment 
as cities held by the enemy. The Italian is 
an emotional being, and though the Parlia- 
ment under the control of Giolotti, a strongly 



4^../ 



lc by side, in the Serbian arr 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




pro-German statesman, held out for ten long 
months against war on the Allies' side, an 
army of orators and pamphleteers stirred up 
the people to the highest pitch of excite- 
ment, and the demonstrations in favor of such 
action amounted almost to revolution. Gabri- 
elle d'Annunzio, poet and playwright, was a 
leader in this agitation, traveling from town 
to town, haranguing the people from the 
steps of the Roman capitol, and in the grand 
plaza of St. Peter's, turning out pamphlets 
as plenteous as 

the doves of St. jfaiJlPjk/? ' ''*'?-•.- 

Mark's, ap- 
pealing to all 
that was erao- V/jT > 
tional in the 
Italian nature 
until he had 
aroused the 
populace from 
Messina to 
Venice to a 
point that 
hardly brooked 
control. After 
a dissolution of 
the ministry 
there followed 
a campaign 
which racked 
the Italian 
peninsula from 



end to end. Every pos- 
sible dramatic incident 
was seized upon as a 
rallying point for the war 
party. In January the 
bodyofBrunoGaribaldi, 
the grandson of Italy's 
famous liberator, was 
brought back from 
France where he had 
been slain, fighting 
bravely with the Allies. 
All Italy went wild with 
adoration for the hero, 
and applause for the 
cause in which he had 
fallen. His state funeral 
in Rome was a cortege 
which would have done 
honor to a king, and the 
whole city lined the nar- 
row and historic ways 
through which it passed. 
It was the cause equally with the heroic and 
historic name to which this tribute of a whole 
nation was paid. From that day there was 
no doubt as to the side on which Italy would 
land. 

It has been asserted that in her final action 
Italy was animated by a lust for spoils, by 
the cftsire to regain Trent and Triest, by 
covetousness for Albania, and an intent to 
make the Adriatic an Italian lake, by an 
ambition to have a larger slice of the Balkan 



ery covering the retreat 




Serbian women, driven from their homes by the Teuton invasion 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



249 



pie, and a bit of the 
final slicing of Turkey. 
Probably that is true. 
Nations are not unsel- 
fish, and statesmen are 
in duty bound to aid 
in the aggrandizement 
of their states. But 
Italy was not wholly 
animated by mercenary 
motives, for she took up 
the cause of the Allies 
when in her neighbor- 
hood at least it was 
darkest. The Russians 
were in full retreat from 
Galicia when she flung 
down her gauntlet to 
Austria. It was the 
people of Italy, the 
emotions of Italy, 
rather than any sordid 
considerations that 

rushed her into battle. Never had secret 
diplomacy or the machinations of a cabinet 
have less to do with calling a nation to arms. 

To the non-military mind it seemed that 
the entry of Italy upon the war ought to 




French artillery hurried across the Yardar River to aid the Serbs, hut too late to avert 
the catastrophe which overwhelmed Serbia. The tardiness of the French and English in 
coming to Serbia's assistance resulted in the complete desolation of the brave little country 
which was overrun by the Teutonic armies 



armv of 800,000 men, and a male population 
of military age of about 3,500,000. During 
the ten months of hesitation every effort had 
been made to bring the mobilized troops to a 
high degree of efficiency, but, save for the 
have an immediate and decisive effect upon war in Tripoli against a weak and disorgan 



the conflict. The belligerents had blen ex- 
pending their strength for ten months in 
what seemed at the time to be too fierce a 
conflict to be long continued. Italy now 
came to the aid of the Allies with an organized 




Serbian camp scene at reveille 



ized enemy, they were without active experi- 
ence in the field. The Italian navy ranked as 
superior to the Austrian navy with which it 
might be expected to come at once into con- 
flict. But its superiority was largely in 
capital ships, 
and the Adri- 
atic, in which 
any naval bat- 
tle would be 
fought, was, be- 
cause of its nar- 
rowness, pecu- 
liarly favorable 
to submarines 
in which Aus- 
tria was not so 
greatly out- 
classed. 

The rugged 
line of Alps, 
which form 
Italy's north- 
ern border, con- 
stitute a pro- 
tection for Aus- 
tria, a menace 



25° 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



to the more southerly nation. For the 
boundary line gives the crests to Austria. 
Her troops bent on an invasion would fight 
downward to the gentle declivities of the 
Italian foothills. If the Italians on their 



has given the territory the name Italia 
Irredenta or Italy Unredeemed. 

Italy struck first, along a five-hundred- 
mile front. Her armies quickly spread over 
the Trentino and, on the west, crossed the 



Lake f 

±srsr GERMANY </> *^ 



■-*V 



| Italian 
^ Austrian 






SCALE OF MILES 



©INNSBRUCK 




BOLOGNE O 



In the Alps the Italian army has had to face the most fotmidable natutal obstacle in Europe 



part sought to invade Austria, their columns 
would have to make their way through nar- 
row passes and tortuous defiles and up pre- 
cipitous heights to the summit. With all 
physical conditions against her, however, 
the Italians had the advantage of conducting 
their invasion in a land the greater part 
of whose inhabitants were enthusiastically 
friendly. For the territory about Trent and 
Trieste is largely peopled by Italians, whose 
restive state under the Austrian domination 



Isonzo River, and reached Montfalcone 
within four days of the declaration of war. 
It seemed for the time as though there were 
to be no effective resistance by the Austrians, 
who had indeed been forced by a Russian 
menace to send to their eastern front an 
army of 700,000 men who had seen service — 
men of from thirty-five to forty years who 
had recently had special training from Ger- 
man officers. With these troops withdrawn 
the opposition to the Italian advance was 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



2;i 



necessarily entrusted 
to troops made up of 
boys below nineteen 
and men above forty- 
five hastily drawn 
from the threatened 
territory which was 
thoroughly per- 
meated with pro- 
Italian sentiment. As 
a result the Italian 
advance for the first 
two months encount- 
ered practically no 
effective resistance. 

The Italian stra- 
tegy put briefly was : 

1. To neutralize 
the friendly Trentino 
by capturing or 
"covering" her de- 
fences, and cut- 
ting her line of com- 
munication with 
Austria proper. 

2. To cover, or 
capture, Trieste and 
then move in force in 
the direction of the 
Austrian fortress of Klagenfurt and Vienna. 
The distance of the Austrian capital from the 
base of Italian operations a week after the 
war began was little 
more than that from 
New York to Provi- 
dence. 

It seemed at first 
that all this was to 
be yielded to Italy by 
default. By the end 
of July her com- 
manders were satis- 
fied with conditions 
in the Trentino, and 
her troops were at- 
tacking along the 
Isonzo from Tarvis to 
the Adriatic — a front 
of not less than 
seventy-five miles. 
The river itself was 
a great natural de- 
fence for the Aus- 
trians. Flowing 
through n arrow 
gorges, bordered by 




War waifs gathered from the snowy trails. Children 
whose parents were killed or lost during the evacuation of 
Servia before the advancing German and Bulgarian armies. 
The one at the left of the photograph had struggled along the 
Albanian trail for 25 days, without parents or friends, and 
survived hardships that overcame many adults. The story 
of the Albanian trail has not been written, but if it ever is it 
will surpass in horror any of the tragedies of Belgium or 
Poland 




Stars and Stripes in Salonika. The American consulate, the 
busiest place in the city 



steep cliffs broken 
only by narrow 
mountain passes, it 
had been strength- 
ened by powerful fort- 
resses erected by the 
Austrians in far- 
sighted anticipation 
of trouble with their 
Italian neighbors. 
Yet to the amaze- 
ment of military 
observers the Italians 
accomplished the 
crossing of the river 
in four separate 
places. Agile as the 
mountain chamois, 
vested with all the 
reckless daring of the 
Latin peoples, they 
proved to be precisely 
the troops needed for 
so desperate an enter- 
prise. 

Gorizia was the im- 
mediate objective and 
early in August, 191 5, 
the Italian staff an- 
nounced positively that its capture was a 
matter of but a few days. Never were mili- 
tary commanders more deceived. Gorizia 
fell indeed to the Ita- 
lian arms, but it fell 
in August, 1916, just 
a year later. The 
twelve months be- 
tween witnessed some 
of the hardest and 
most inconclusive 
fighting that had 
taken place in any 
battle area of the 
Great War. 

Into all the details 
of that year of strug- 
gle and of carnage it 
is impossible in this 
brief narrative to go. 
Enough to say that 
by t li e middle of 
December, 1 9 1 " 
Italy had so est. 
lished herself within 
Austrian borders 
as to make anv Aus- 




CONQUERING THE ALPS. ITALIAN 




tENCHMENT IN AN ALPINE RAVINE 



Photo by Brown Bros. 



254 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




KEY 

I ■ ■■ International Boundarie 
I a t=3 Old Serbian Boundary 
— ^— Railroads 
== Highways 



SCALE OF MILES 



The railroads, rivers, and wagon roads of Servia. These three kinds of highways are the only 
practicable means of traversing this mountainous country, and their location has determined the strategy 
of the invasion of Servia by the Teutonic allies and the Bulgars 

trian invasion of her own territory appear 
improbable. The Austrian line on the Isonzo 
she had pierced at the centre. Tolmino, 
Gorizia, and Trieste were all menaced by her 



Gorizia had 
sufferedheavily 
from the fire 
of General 
Cadorno's ar- 
tillery, but 
though the 
town and its 
forts were in 
ruins the de- 
fenders still 
maintained 
what all con- 
ceded to be a 
hopeless resis- 
tance. But 
those who con- 
ceded this had 
little con- 
ception of how 
long the dogged 
Austrians 
could hold out. 
The fallingof 
winter in the 
narrow and 
precipitous de- 
files and tower- 
ing peaks of 
the Dolomites 
ended effective 
operations in 
that section. 
Some fighting, 
indeed, pro- 
gressed, and 
the world heard 
of skirmishes 
on skiis over 
snow lying 
seven feet deep 
on the level, 
of artillery 
mounted on 
sledges, and of 
hot battles 
fought among 
the avalanches. 
But in the main 
the winter 



passed without any material change in the 
positions along the Italian frontier. The Aus- 
trians were on the defensive, and every natu- 
ral obstacle that the rigors of winter put in 
troops, and the occupation of any one of the path of the Italians was to their advan- 
them meant a long step on the way to Vienna, tage. Nevertheless the world wondered at 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



255 



the slight showing made by the Italians and 
complaint was common in the allied press that 
the soldiers of Victor Emmanuel were "shirk- 
ing their bit." What had really happened 
was that while they had crossed the frontiers 
at practically every point, they had been in- 
stantly checked upon coming intocontact with 
the Austrian main lines of defence. Once so 
checked the Italian lines showed as little 
change for eight months as did the French 
lines in Flanders. 

In May, 1916, the Austrians who had thus 



portions that it had maintained in the battle- 
fields of France. More than 2,000 heavy 
guns were brought into action by the Aus- 
trians, and the weight of metal thrown is said 
to have been equalled only at Verdun. 

The Austrian drive continued for ten days. 
It had been planned with the utmost skill. 
Many strategic points in the Trentino were 
recovered, and the Austrian columns pene- 
trated far into Italian territory. At this 
time the Austrian War Office reported the 
recovery of 300 square miles of lost Austrian 




■L !!■ 






"'€*»* 



entanglements outside 



far been content with maintaining a fairly 
successful defensive, suddenly began an at- 
tack which in its turn threatened to over- 
whelm the Italian forces along the western 
Alpine front. It is estimated that this 
Austrian drive enlisted more than 700,000 
men, of whom 360,000 were newly brought 
from the Galician front. Both in the Tren- 
tino and along the Isonzo front the Austro- 
Hunganans pressed the attack with such 
vigor that the Italians were pressed back 
from all the advanced positions they had won 
in the Austrian Tyrol, and were hard put to 
it to maintain their lines before Gorizia. 
For the first time in the eastern theatre of 
war the work of the artillery took on the pro- 



territory, and the occupation of 300 square 
miles of Italian soil. The moment seemed 
critical for Italy, for the Austrian Tyrol pene- 
trates so far into her territory that invading 
columns moving southeast from that border 
would not only capture Venice and Verona, 
but would cut off the Italian army operating 
along the Isonzo. Or, if the Austrians chose 
to cooperate with the German drive, then in 
progress in France, they might move west- 
ward from the Trentino salient and menace 
Milan and Turin, the latter a point of con- 
centration for an attack on France's Italian 
frontier. Should such an attack be even 
threatened France would have to rush troops 
to the menaced front, thereby weakening her 



256 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Salonika from the sea. Salonika changed hands from Turkey to Greece in 191 

defence at Verdun and in Flanders. The 
situation was a critical one. It found its 
reflection in Italian politics, for furious at- 
tacks upon the conduct of the war caused the 
overthrow of the ministry. But in the end 
Italian gallantry saved the day and wrested 
new victories from the very grip of defeat. 
It is quite true that the full measure of the 
new Italian successes was due to the launch- 
ing in June, 1916, of the great Russian drive 
in Bukowina and Galicia which compelled 
the diversion of many of the Austrian troops 
to that theatre of war. But even before this 
the Italians, though in ten days they had 
lost 30,000 prisoners and 298 cannon, with 




ly oxen are equa 



muddy roads 



more than 
60,000 men 
put out of 
action, had 
rallied and 
checked the 
invaders' ad- 
vances. In 
May and 
June of 1916 
theconditions 
ot the same 
months in 
191 5 had been 
precisely re- 
versed. At 
the earlier 
period the Italians had carried all the Austrian 
outposts but were checked in their career when 
they encountered the enemy's main line of de- 
fence. So, too, the Aust nans w T e re checked now 
that they had encountered the main line of the 
Italians. Then came the Russian diversion, 
and sharply upon its heels the Italians in their 
turn began a dashing and successful counter 
offensive. 

Climatic conditions compelled the Italians 
to force the fighting on the Isonzo line at 
first rather than in the Tyrol. In the 
towering ranges of the Dolomites the snow 
lies heavy until July, and after driving their 
foe from their own territory the Italian forces 
in that section rested 
on their arms to some 
extent, awaiting sum- 
mer and the disap- 
pearance of the snow. 
But the drive on 
Gorizia was not de- 
layed. The broad val- 
ley of the Isonzo is so 
placed that the warm 
winds of Italy and the 
Adriatic flow freely 
up it at all times, giv- 
ing Gorizia, despite 
its northern latitude, 
some fame as a winter 
resort. It is indeed 
almost Californian in 
climate. Thetown 
itself lies in the centre 
of a ring of hills, all 
held by Austrian bat- 
teries. Although those 
immediately in front of 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



257 




the Italian 
armies were 
reduced by 
artillery or 
taken by 
trench war 
fare, it was 
futile for the 
assailants to 
occupy the 
town itself 
while it was 
still com- 
manded by 
others on ad- 
jacent hills, 
and upon 

these the Italians now began a patient and 
persistent attack. Three hills commanded 
the city — Mount Sabatino, Mount San 
Michele, and the heights of Podgora. The 
last were taken by the Italians in Novem- 
ber. The other two succumbed to Victor 
Emmanuel's artillery and trench warfare the 
last week in July. The Italians had brought 
to this work a prodigious equipment of new 
and powerful guns — 1,500 were said to have 
been furnished the army at the beginning 
of its new drive in May. Eor two days the 
mountainside, which had been under heavy 
fire for a month or more, was subjected to 
such an infernal rain of shell and shrapnel 
that no living thing 
could withstand it. 

Mount Sabatino had 
long seemed impreg- 
nable. It resisted 
stubbornly the fire of 
the terrible new guns, 
and was only taken by 
the exercise of that 
incredible and patient 
industry which charac- 
terized so many of 
the military operations 
of the war. The for- 
mation of the land in 
this region is of lime- 
stone, and in this the 
Italians had for months 
been hewing wide un- 
derground passage- 
ways, capable of per- 
mitting four men 
abreast to pass from 
their lines to within 




Roumanian cavalry. It was the ambition of the Roumanian army to gain Transylvania 

twenty yardsof the Austrian defences. Three 
such tunnels of 240 to 300 feet long were 
ready for use when, on August 6th, the final 
bombardment began. Then, after the great 
guns had beaten the Austrian trenches out 
of any semblance of form, and driven away 
nearly all the defenders who could escape, 
the Italians poured out of the exits of their 
tunnels and overwhelmed the amazed Aus- 
trians who remained. Mt. Sabatino thus 
passed into Italian hands. Mt. San Michele 
fell the same day. Twenty times or more 
it had been taken and lost, and for seven 
months more than half of its summit had 
been held by the Italians Always domi- 





Servian refugees on the road 



>-S* 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



nated by the Austrian fire from the higher 
Mt. Sabatino it could not be held until the 
latter peak had fallen. But now after sus- 
taining attack not only from the Italian 
guns, but from twenty-four dirigible balloons, 
each carrying four tons of explosive and 
daringly operated, its defenders finally with- 
drew. 



ing straw and gasoline were used at times to 
dislodge the defenders. For three days this 
sort of fighting raged, then the remnant of the 
Austrians fled across the bridge, blowing it 
up as the last company passed. There- 
upon the Italians, in the face of a heavy fire, 
forded the stream and put the seal of comple- 
tion upon their victory. 




British guns to help the embattled Serbs. A part of the artillery contingent that passed through Salonika to Servia. 
British expedition was small and late in arriving 



Immediately upon securing the heights the 
Italians turned their attention to the city. 
It was heavily shelled to drive out the few 
defenders remaining. The bridge head was 
still held by the Austrians, and the Italians 
entered upon a hand-to-hand battle in the 
strip of territory that still separated them 
from it. Here there was subterranean war- 
fare. The Austro-Hungarians had adapted 
for purposes of defence hundreds of caves 
that nature had formed in the limestone hills 
and crags. These thev had enlarged into 
great halls, holding vast quantities of muni- 
tions and housing thousands of men, Burn- 



Two days later the Duke of Aosta and 
King Victor Emmanuel rode into the con- 
quered city. The culmination of a fourteen 
months' campaign had been reached. Gon- 
zia had fallen. One great step had been 
taken on the way to Vienna. The Italian 
guns were within twelve miles of Trieste 
and the Austrian fleet had already been or- 
dered to evacuate that port which had been 
its base and seek a new one farther down the 
Adriatic. A notable advance had been made 
in what was now obviously the allied plan 
of campaign — namely, to pound Austria as 
the weakest of the Teutonic Allies and to 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



259 



reduce her to impotence and perhaps com- 
plete surrender even while Germany fought 
gallantly on. 

In all the history of the world's diplomacy 
there has been no more complicated or per- 
plexing record than that of Greece during 
the Great War. At the end of its second vear 



were being used to carry information of 
value to the Teutons. Greece yielded to this 
as to everything, though her pro-German 
King Constantine took to his bed in an 
illness that may well have been brought on 
by chagrin and pique. But the Greek Govei n- 
ment blandly declared all this to be the part 
of perfect neutrality, though they confessed 







Prince Andreas at the head of the Greek Army. A view of the 
the head of a powerful 

the Greek Government w T as still nominally 
at peace with all the belligerents. True, 
an army of French, English, and Italian 
troops numbering more than 600,000 was 
encamped on Greek soil in and about Sa- 
lonika, and was using that point as a base 
for operations against the Austrians and Bul- 
gars in Servia. Greek ports, even Athens, 
were open to the vessels of the Allies bringing 
troops and supplies to this land of dubious 
neutrality. Toward the end of the second 
year the Allies even made a successful de- 
mand for the right to administer the Greek 
posts and telegraphs on the plea that they 



brother of the King of Greece as he rode through Salonika at 
army of Greek troops 

that it was a benevolent neutrality to the 
Allies. Some one with a taste for research 
in diplomatic history discovered that in 
1832, after a war for independence in which 
she was aided by Great Britain and Fiance, 
the nation of Greece was established under 
the protection of those two nations and Russia. 
The Convention of London, by which the 
Kingdom of Greece had been erected, had 
never been annulled, and was now in force. 
What more reasonable then than that the 
troops of the protecting nations should 
be hurried to Greek territory to guard it 
from invasion by the Bulgars and Aus- 



26o 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



trians who were knocking at its northern 
barriers? 

The plea served its purpose at any rate and 
saved the day for the Allies in the Balkan 
regions — so far at least as it had been saved 
to mid-summer of 1916. For the situation 
had for a year been most menacing to the 
allied interests, and only by the friendly or 



peror William, whom he married in 1889. 
In the two Balkan wars of 1912-13 he greatly 
distinguished himself, and the Kaiser, anx- 
ious to tie so capable a soldier-king to his own 
fortunes, made him a field marshal in the 
German army — the only sovereign thus 
honored save Francis Joseph of Austria. 
In a speech at Berlin acknowledging this 





French artillery passing a Greek cavalry regiment. The French were the first of the \llied troops to land at Salonika for 
the assistance of Servia when she was assailed by Germany, Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria 



enforced cooperation of Greece could it have 
been met. That it was grave was due in 
part to the strong pro-German sympathies 
of King Constantine, and in part to the 
diplomatic and military mistakes of the 
Allies in their early dealings with the Balkan 
problem. 

King Constantine's early military educa- 
tion had been at the famous French school 
of St. Cyr. This course completed he was 
sent to Berlin where he shone for some 
time in the uniform of the Imperial Guards, 
and became betrothed to the sister of Em- 



honor the new Field Marshal maladroitly 
ascribed all his military successes to his post- 
graduate course in the German army. The 
French people blazed with resentment. Not 
only had their pet military academy been 
snubbed, but the vital fact that the armies 
Constantine successfully led had been trained 
by two successive French commissions had 
been ignored. Hurrying to Paris Constan- 
tine strove to dispel the hostility his speech 
had created. But German agents had been 
ahead of him, and while official Paris was 
most hospitable, the mob before his hotel 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



so grossly assailed him that he said to a 
friend later in Athens, "As long as I live I 
shall never pardon the French people toi 




those in- 
sults." It 
is fair to say 
for Con- 
st a n t i n e 
that how- 
ever strong 
his sym- 
pathy for 
Germany he never sought to array his people 
on the side of the Teutons. His constant 
struggle was for neutrality and peace. The 
earlier lethargy of the Allies in relation to 
things Balkan made his position easier, his plea 
the more plausible. Turkey was lost to them 
nine weeks after the war began. Servia, some 
part of whose territory might have been 
fitting reward for Greek aid, was an ally of 
the British. The Allies could offer no such 
reward, but the Germans promptly did. 
The expedition to the Dardanelles failed. 
Bulgaria went into the war on the side of the 
Teutons. Nowhere in the Balkan regions 
was there any indication that the Allies would 
be able to reward Greece for her adhesion, 
or even have power to defend her from the 
wrath of the embittered Teutons. 

Against the strength of Constantine the 
king was arrayed that of Venizelos, a popu- 
lar leader. Himself a Cretan, the son of a 
farm laborer, this man had so identified him- 
self with the popular cause in Greece that as 
far back as 1906 he had been made Prime 
Minister at the demand of the people. His 
first act then was to strip the four royal 
princes of their military offices, putting prac- 
tical soldiers in their places and calling upon 
France for a commission to reorganize the 



Serbian refugees arriving .it Salonika on 
Christmas morning. Hiey had been driven 

from their homes hy war anil, with what belongings they could 
load on a few animals, came to ask the hospitality oi foreign 
and neutral Greece. Many of the women and children had 
lost husbands and fathers in the war, and some families had 
been separated. Refugees poured into Salonika by the 
thousands every day for weeks 




The British soldiers at Salonika were served with a small 
ration of beer twice a day, and the attendance at the function 
w^as always ioo percent. Alcoholics are not much used in any 
of the armies, the use of spirits being entirely forbidden i xi i pt 
under unusual conditions, and the amount of linht nines and 
beer being strictly limited 



262 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



263 




Servian officer's odd shelter. Headquarters of Major Merse (on platform) in command of the advanced lines at Gradek, 
on the Vardar River. A crude silo is shown at the right of the picture. The French and British forces proved inadequate to 

save Servia from her enemies 



of Prime Minister h 
a majority of the 
Several times he h 



army. Yet when reorganization was com- 
plete and the Balkan war of 1912 was im- 
pending he called Constantine back to the 
head of the reformed 
army. Constantine 
made good. The 
army adored him, and 
its loyalty alone en- 
abled him later to 
block for a time the 
endeavor of Venizelos 
to swing the nation 
to the Allies' side. 

At the close of the 
second year of war 
Venizelos seemed to 
be the victor in this 
struggle. Though 

Snipped Or niS Ottice Servian 3-inch gun being moved to a new emplacement 




e had theGreek people and 

Parliament back of him. 

ad appeared to be on the 
verge of triumph, but 
King Constantine 
proved an adept in 
diplomatic procrasti- 
nation, even mani- 
festing symptoms of 
the gravest illness 

J. when a decisive mo- 
ment was at hand. 

g5 The pressure of the 
Allies upon Greece 
continued to grow 
during 1916. Finally, 
by their insistence 
the king was forced 
to demobilize his 



264 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



army, the cost 
of maintaining 
which had 
brought Greece 
to the verge of 
bankruptcy. 
At this moment 
he sought to de- 
liverover to the 
Bulgarians — 
led by German 
officers — three 
forts, Rupel, 
Spatovo, and 
Dragotin, fac- 
ing the British 
position at 
S a 1 o n i k a . 
That proved to 
be an act of 
rashness that 
brought affairs 
to a culmination. The populace of Athens 
revolted. The king fled to Larissa. The 
British instantly blocked all Greek ports, 
and the Entente Powers demanded the dis- 
missal of the existing cabinet and the appoint- 
ment of one in sympathy with their cause. 
All this was acceded to and, though the 




View of Sarajevo from the suburbs, sin 



0,1 & Underwood 
juntry 




Every man must be his own tailor. Serbians resting durin 



second year of the war ended with Greece 
still nominally neutral, her territory and rail- 
ways were at the absolute disposal of the 
Allies who also assumed authority over her 
posts, telegraphs, and harbor authorities. 
Her king, stripped of all power, was an exile 
from his capital. Her government was ad- 
ministered in 
the interest of 
the Allies, and 
the one thing 
lacking to the 
actual partici- 
pation of 
Greece in the 
war was that 
her armies 
should take the 
held against 
Bulgaria, to- 
gether with the 
French, British, 
and Italians, in 
the autumn 
drive through 
Servia. 

That culmi- 
nating triumph 
for Venizelos 
or else a civil 
war seemed 
inevitable 
in Septem- 
ber, 1916. 



arch 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





ilU J 




I 9^t 




Wft 


iV *=~' 


1- ■!? " 








** 



3t- 



:--«ir 



Serbian artillery retreating through the Albanian Alp: 



265 

tures of the 
Germans for an 
orderly march 
through their 
country. The 
first step of the 
invader toward 
the boundary 
at Liege was 
met hy a can- 
non shot. 

In Greece 
the Prime Min- 
i s t e r himself 
invited the Al- 
lies to land at 
Salonika. He 
asked of them 
1 50,000 men 
to aid in guard- 
ing Servia, the 
ally of Greece, 
The right of 



It must, probably, go down as the verdict from Bulgarian aggression 
of history that in making Greece their base Venizelos to issue the invitation has never 
of operations against the Bulgarians and been questioned though the act was repudi- 
Teutons, the Allies were guilty of a violation ated by King Constantine. 1 he German 
of neutrality narrowly approaching that of troops used Belgian territory as an avenue of 
the German invasion of Belgium. Tech- attack upon Belgium s friend France 1 he 
nically the taunts and jeers of the partisans British and trench troops used Greek tern- 
of Germany 
were justified. 
The rigid de- 
votion to the 
rights of neu- 
trals which led 
Great Britain 
to declare war 
when German 
guns opened 
upon the forts 
at Liege, was 
quite forgotten 
when British 
troops landed 
at Salonika. 

But the two 
violations of 
neutrality, 
though identi- 
cal in princip 
differed mark- 
edly in degree. 
In Belgium the 
constitutiona 
authorities re- 
fused the over- 




sited Italian gun bombarding an Austrian position near Lugana 



266 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 




A company of Serbians at Lone Tret Hill, Halinchi, near Prilip, answering roll 

call before entering the trenches lor the last stand against the Bulgars. For many of these brave fellows it was a last roll call. 
In the ranks were soldiers of all ages from mere boys to grandfathers. This picture was taken within range of the Bulgar guns 

tory as a base whence to give aid to Greek's babes, or the violation of women. At that 
ally and friend Servia. point the cases of Belgium and Greece sharply 

When the Allies first sought the privilege cease to be parallel, 
of landing at Salonika the King 
himself admitted that 80 per cent, 
of his people favored their cause. 
It was evident enough that the 
landing of the Allied troops was 
approved by the Greek nation 
and officially authorized b\ the 
Cabinet. 

There was furthermore no resis- 
tance. The "invasion," so-called, 
was peaceful and benevolent. 
There were nc burned and ravag- 
ed towns, no murdered and muti- 
lated citizens. The Parthenon 
did not share the fate of the 
great library of Louvain. If 
the British and French must ex- 
cuse their action on the mere plea 
of military exigency they may at 
least add that they did not find 
military necessity compelled the 
burning of towns, the slaughter of 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 
CHRONOLOGY OF THE PERIOD TREATED IN CHAPTER IX 



(A drive hv the Teutons through Servia, Montenegro, and 
Albania late in the fall of 1915 brought Bulgaria into the war 
on the side of the Central Empires, opened a direct railroad 
line between Berlin and Constantinople, helped to compel 
the abandonment of the Gallipoli expedition by the Allies, 
and forced the dispatch to Salonika of a Franco-British-Servian 
expedition of about 700,000 and an Italian expedition to Valona 
with about 200,000 troops. It was expected to be the prelude 
to a powerful Turko-German attack upon Suez and Egypt 
but. that did not follow. It left the Allies in August preparing 
for a counter-drive back through Servia and into Hungary.) 

October z, 1915. Bulgaria masses troops on Servia's eastern 
frontier. 

> 5-7. Landing of 70,000 French and 15,000 British at 
Salonika. 

October 9. Austro-Germans occupy Belgrade with fierce 
street fighting. 

October 11. Bulgarians invade Servia. 

Oct. 17 to November 22. Servians gradually pushed out of 
their country and through Montenegro and Albania to the 
Adriatic. 

November 4. Navigation of the Danube opened to the 
Austnans. 

November 30. First Berlin to Constantinople express via 
Vienna and Belgrade established. 

Decembers. Franco-British and Servian forces pushed back 
over the frontier into Greece. 

January II, 1916. Austrians capture Montenegro stronghold 
of Mount Loytchen. 

January 12. Austrians occupy Cettinje, capital of Monte- 
negro. 

February 26. Austrians occupy Durazzo, Albania, driving out 
Italians who concentrate at Valona. 

April 15-30. Franco-British force at Salonika reaches 550,000. 
Servians to the number of 150,000, refitted at Corfu with 
French aid, joins this force. 

May 26. Bulgarians enter Greek territory and take several 
Greek forts with permission of that governmenr. This 
brings Greek relations with the Entente Powers to a climax. 

1 1 \iv. (Italy signified disapproval of the purposes of the 
war by notifying Austria immediately upon the presentation 
of that nation's ultimatum to Servia that a war growing out of 
such demands would be regarded by Italy as releasing her 
from further association with the Triple Alliance. Thereafter, 
for eight months, the final position of Italy was in doubt.) 

April 16, 1915. Italian mobilization results in putting 
1,200,000 first-line soldiers under arms. 

April 24. Rapid departure of German families from Italy. 

Jpril 29. Italy reported to have agreed with Allies as to 
terms upon which she will enter war. 

May 19. Italy issues Green Book, claiming that Austria has 
broken faith. 

May 20. Chamber of Deputies by a vote of 407 to 74 confers 
pow'er on the government to make war. Complete over- 
throw of Gioletti and the pro-German party. 

May 21. Senate concurs in action of the Chamber of Depu- 
ties. 

May 22. General mobilization ordered. 

May 23. War declared upon Austro-Hungary. 



May 26. Italian forces occupy Austrian territory along the 
frontier from Switzetland to the Adriatic. King Victor 
Emmanuel assumes command and goes to the front. 

May 29. Large Italian army trying to cross the Isonzo River. 
Italians advancing and Austrians retteating throughout the 
province of Trent. 

June 13. Italians bombarding the fortifications of Gorizia 
twenty-seven miles from Trieste. 

June 19. Rome teports that the Italian armies now occupy 
twice as much territory in the Irredenta as Austria offered 
Italy for remaining neutral. 

June 24. Austrians heavily reenforced assume the offensive. 

June 28. Italians enter terrirory west of Lake Garda, cross- 
ing mountains more than 8,000 feet high. 

July 7. Heavy fighting at the bridge head of Gorizia. 

July 16. Italians heavily fortifying all positions captured 
from the Austrians. 

July 25. Austrian General Staff evacuates Gorizia. 

July 27. The fighting along the Isonzo reported to be one of 
the fiercest and most sanguinary struggles of the war. 

September 3. Serious Italian repulses at Tolmino. 

September 22. Italians drive Austrians from the Dolomite 
Valley. 

September 23. Austrians evacuate Monte Coston after a 
defence of several months. 

October 23. Italians, still on the offensive, gain ground in the 
Carso region and the Tyrol. 

October 29. Austrians still hold Gorizia bridge head against 
Italian attacks. 

November 16. Italian bombardment of Gorizia begun, doing 
heavy damage. 

December J-II. Repeated unsuccessful Italian attacks on 
defenders of Gorizia. 

December 17. Austrian defences at Gorizia in ruins but de- 
fenders still hold out. 

January 16, 1916. Austrians make heavy gains near Oslavia, 
raking many Italian prisoners. 

February 3-11. Heavy righting around (iorizia, bur winter con- 
ditions in the mountains stopped operations for some weeks. 

March 14. Italians resume offensive along the Isonzo front. 

April 19. Italians capture the summit of the Col di l.ana, 
after exploding what were said to be the greatest mines 
used in the war. 

April 26. Austrians reoccupy part of the Col di Lana — 
Austrian concenttation seems to indicate a great offensive 
soon. 

May 13. Austrian offensive begun southeast of Ttent. 
Italians abandon advanced positions, losing many prisoners. 

May 19. Austrians enter Italian territory. 

June 5-10. Austrian offensive reaches climax with the re- 
covery of 300 square miles of lost tetritory and the captute 
of 300 square miles of Italian territory. 

June 25. Italian offensive begun with 500,000 fresh troops 
and 1,500 big guns. 

July 1. Italians teport recovery of one-third of all territory 
lost in the Austrian drive. 

July 22. Italians successful in the notthern Dolomite region 
with heavy captures of prisoners and guns. 



270 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




C II A PT E R X 



THE ATTACK: UPON VERDUN NATURE OF THE POSITION IIS STRA- 
TEGIC IMPORTANCE — CHARACTER OF HISTORY'S GREATES1 BATTLE 
THE FAMOUS TRANSPORT SYSTEM BATTLE OF THE SOMME 




w 



HEN the gray- 
green flood of 
German sul- 
ci i e i" s w a s 
pouring into 
France over 
every railroad and 
highway, through vio- 
lated neutral lands as 
well as by more legiti- 
mate routes, all Pans, 
dazed by the inroad 
through Belgium and 
the sudden collapse of 
such fortresses as Liege 
and Namur, said hope- 
lull y, "Look at \ erdun. 
She will hold out!" 

Well. She did hold 
out. At the end of 
the second year of the 
war she is still holding 
out, drenched with 
blood of heroes on both 
sides; the ground foi 
miles around plowed 
deep with shell pits 
and planted with the bodies of tens of 
thousands of the gallant dead. She holds 
out in grim defiance though she never really 
barred the way to Paris, for in those dark 
days of August the German army ignored 
the grim gray fortress hewn in the solid 
rock and, leaving it to one side, marched 
on its errand doomed to disappointment. 
1 he battle of the Maine sent the invaders 
flying back, but what they had done proved 
the worthlessness of Verdun as a fortress. 
As a name, however, to designate the fifty 
miles or more of trenches which stretch out 
right and left from the ancient town and 



fortress in the rock, it has become s\ mbolical 
of the most persistent assault and the most 
dogged resistance known to military history. 

Fate plays curious pranks with cities as 
well as with men. Richmond might have 
gone down into history merely as the chief 
source of the smoker's blessings had not 
Jefferson Davis made it the capital of the 
Confederacy, and compelled General Lee 
to defend it even to the ultimate sacrifice 
of the Confederate army. Verdun, until 
the German Crown Prince gave it immortal- 
ity by dashing his magnificent legions to 
pieces against its flame-tipped barriers, was 
famed chiefly for its manufacture of sugared 
almonds and other confections much es- 
teemed at French weddings. Long after 
the war began and German shells were now 
and then dropping in the streets of the quiet 
town the confectioners went peacefully on 
with the manufacture of their "dragees," 
and even invented a bonboniere, like the 
shell of a "French 75," which on occasion 
would vociferously explode with a scattering 
hail of sugared almonds. 

1 he old fortress of Verdun, its citadel, 
was built in the days before engineers under- 
stood that soft earth is a more stubborn re- 
sistant than solid rock. It was built by 
\ auban, most famous of military engineers, 
whose works have been relegated to oblivion 
by modern high explosives. The citadel of 
Verdun he hewed our of a beetling cliff, blast- 
ing out redoubts and battlements, long cor- 
ridors, barracks, and assembly halls. Even 
an elevator was added by later engineers. 
But if that seemed something of an oddity 
in a fort its presence was atoned for by the 
fact that when war really betel Verdun all 
the guns were taken out of the old citadel. 
Their place was nor there but far off in the 



272 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



trenches miles away from the city. The 
triumph of Vauban's engineering skill, in face 
of the German "Jack Johnsons" was con- 
demned to more peaceful uses. Its impreg- 
nable galleries sheltered the wounded brought 
in from the real front. Its casements 
bricked up formed excellent ovens where 
bread by the thousand loaves was baked for 



German forces in France and Belgium. 
Naturally the Germans desired to do away 
with this ever-present menace at Verdun. 
Economically Verdun was of tremendous 
value to the Germans, for its possession would 
buttress their hold upon the Basin of Briey, 
in which is concentrated 90 per cent, 
of the iron production of France. All this 




General view of the Hall of Mechanics in the Grand Palace in Paris. This hall is devoted to machinery for one purpose 
only — the relieving of human suffering and the restoration of activity to disabled limbs. The machinery is highly ingenious, 
and special forms are provided for arms, hands, feet, legs, spine and in fact every part of the body. 



the army. Its corridors served for offices for 
the administration of the town and as stor- 
age places for the munitions of war to be 
employed elsewhere. 

Though we shall find that as the fortunes of 
war varied so varied the expressions of the 
belligerents as to the value of Verdun; it is in 
fact a place of great strategic importance. 
As a guard to Paris it, with its fifty miles 
of encircling forts and trenches, blocks the 
most direct road from Germany. As a men- 
ace to Germany it is the French post closest 
to Metz. The reduction of Metz would 
make necessary the withdrawal of all the 



production has been in the possession of 
Germany since the first invasion of France, 
and German writers declare that without it 
the great works of Krupp at Essen could not 
be steadily operated. And, finally, had the 
Germans been able to pierce the French line 
at Verdun, the Battle of the Marne would 
have been undone, the way to Paris would 
again have been open, and the British in the 
west might have been cut off from the French 
line in the east. General Joffre saw the 
supreme importance of the Verdun position — 
not particularly the fort — when on the night 
of the Battle of the Marne he sent a telegram 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



273 



to General Petain ordering that the positions elusive as was all the bloodshed along that 



on the Meuse be held at any cost and declar 
ing that "any commander who shall give an 
order to retreat shall be court martialled." 

Throughout the early months of the war 
the importance of Verdun seemed to impress 
the Germans hardly adequately. They had 
almost enveloped it in their attack from the 



long half-subterranean line that extended 
from the English Channel to the borders of 
Switzerland. The hope of the Germans was 
to reach and cut the one railroad line which 
connected Verdun with the rest of France 
from which new troops and supplies for the 
beleaguered fortress must be drawn. Though 




American volunteers off to join the French Armv 



side of the Woevre which gave them posses- 
sion of St. Mihiel, their point of farthest pene- 
tration into France on the eastern front. 
But then, when perhaps its reduction might 
have been easy, they passed by and devoted 
their attention to other points. To keep 
Verdun isolated and idle rather than to cap- 
ture or reduce it seemed to be the purpose of 
their strategy in the last months of 1914. 
In the Forest of Argonne on the other side of 
the town the Crown Prince's army kept up 
for a whole year the effort to cut off the town 
and isolate it from the rest of France, but the 
effort was half-hearted and without result. 
This fighting partook of the nature of all the 
trench fighting in France, and was as incon- 



balked in this design the Germans did ad- 
vance their heavy artillery to a point so near 
the road that it became unsafe to rely upon 
it alone. Then the marvelous highways of 
France came into play and rendered possible 
that amazing organization of motor trans- 
portation which will be described later. 

Nor were the French much more success- 
ful in their efforts to dislodge the Germans 
from their positions before Verdun. In their 
great autumn offensive of 191 5 they had 
launched savage attacks upon the Germans 
in the Argonne and Artois districts. Some 
ground was won, particularly in the Argonne, 
but the vital German position, the salient 
at St. Mihiel was unshaken, The British 



274 

took the town of Loos 
with a loss of some 
50,000 men, and the 
French gained a few 
yards here, and a mile 
or two there in the 
trenches of the Ar- 
gonne, but that was 
about the net result of 
the Allied drive. A 
detailed map of the 
positions shows 
scarcely any discern- 
ible difference in the 
position of the bel- 
ligerents before and 
after the effort. 

It had been expected 
that the Allies would 
renew their drive in 
the early spring. But 
the Germans fore- 
stalled them by be- 
ginning a , 
savage fron- 
tal attack 
on Verdun in 
February, 
1916. It is 
difficult to 
comprehend 
the reasons 
which im- 
pelled the 
German 
Genera 1 
Staff to 
order this 
attack and 
to maintain 
it formonths 
with the loss 
of hundreds 
of thousands 
of men. As 
time wore on 
and the 
chances of 
success grew 
less favor- 
able the Ger- 
man press 
began to de- 
preciate the 
importance 
of Verdun, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Only the soldiers laugh in France. The civil population 
is staid and sedate under the shadow of the national cal- 
amity, hut the soldiers, constantly in danger of death, are 
as jolly as Frenchmen are wont to be 



and declare that con- 
tinuance of the attack 
was dictated only by 
consideration of the 
moral effect its aban- 
donment might have 
upon public sentiment 
in other lands. Mili- 
tary authorities in 
France, too, underesti- 
mated the worth of 
Verdun and seriously 
contemplated ordering 
its evacuation. But in 
time it became a sym- 
bol. The German 
people had been edu- 
cated to believe that 
its capture was the 
certain assurance of 
victory, and the army 
dared not abandon the 



attack. 




k shells I 



Verdun. One of the many ammunition depots in the rear of the French 
lines at Verdun 



To France 
the holding 
of Verdun 
was the 
army's su- 
preme test, 
and the 
army would 
not shirk it. 
Whatever 
their mo- 
tives the 
Germans 
launched 
their historic 
attack upon 
the Verdun 
positions on 
the 2 1st of 
February, 
1 9 1 6 . The 
Crown 
Prince was 
himself in 
nominal 
command . 
Though 
there was 
growing 
doubt as to 
the military 
capacity of 
this eldest 
son of the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Kaiser, political con- 
siderations made it 
imperative that to him 
should fall the honor 
of some great victory 
— and no German then 
doubted that Verdun 
was to be the scene of 
a great national tri- 
umph. There was 
every reason for Ger- 
manv to anticipate 
success. The winter 
had checked oper- 
ations in the Russian 
and Balkan theatres of 
war, and the veteran 
troops from those 
regions were hurriedly 
brought to join with 
troops from Ypres, the 
Sornme, and the Aisne. 
Great guns 
in tremen- 
dous num- 
bers, more 
than 3,000 
according to 
report, and 
appalling 
calibres had 
been concen- 
t r a t e d as 
early as De- 
cember, and 
great piles of 
shells and 
bombs were 
stored at 
every place 
along the 
point where 
they would 
be needed. 
The concen- 
tration of 
the men be- 
gan in Janu- 
ary and for a 
month or 
more they 
were held 
outofaction, 
abundantly 
fed and 
equipped in 




ir them, lierman prisoner 
ted bv French officers 



be-in t: in- 




A French 



Copyright by Underwood & L'oderwood 

reconnoitring machine with two machine guns joined together on a turret 
behind the pilot 



27S 

every way for the tri- 
umphant attack which 
their general confi- 
dently expected. An 
order of the day issued 
by General von Daim- 
ling, found on aGerman 
prisoner, announced to 
his men that the de- 
cisive day had come at 
last, and that their ir- 
resistible attack on 
Verdun would put an 
immediate end to the 
war. The plan for the 
attack which was to 
produce this tremen- 
dous result was that 
which has become typ- 
ical in this war— a 
racking and crushing 
artillery attack, fol- 
lowed by an 
assault by 
infantry. 
With the 
French front 
once broken 
the Germans 
expected to 
close in on 
»_, Verdun from 

behind, cut- 
ting off the 
French re- 
treat andan- 
nihilat ing 
the French 
army. Had 
the latter 
end been at- 
t a i n e d it 
would in- 
deed have 
been a great 
step toward 
the conclu- 
sion of the 
war. 

Perhaps 
the French 
gave no 
thought to 
retreat. 
Neverthe- 
less, the 



276 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



question of how to get their army away 
should disaster befall, and how to feed it and 
furnish it with fresh munitions and reenforce- 
ments was one of the utmost importance. 
At the outset there were about 550,000 men 
in the French army about Verdun, this num- 
ber rising at times to as many as 750,000. 
To supply this enormous force there was but 
one railroad available, and that one at points 
exposed to the fire of the enemy. The Ger- 
mans anticipated that the defenders would 



there is lacking to the city any railroad. In 
September, 191 4, the Germans took St. 
Mihiel and cut the railway coming north 
along the Meuse. On their retreat from the 
Marne the soldiers of the Crown Prince 
halted at Montfaucon and Varennes, and 
their cannon have commanded the Paris- 
Verdun-Metz Railroad ever since. Save for a 
crazy, narrow-gauge line wandering along the 
hill slopes, climbing by impossible grades, 
Verdun is without rail communication. 




"Front Feb. 21 before Attack. f. 

► Fronts of Main Attacks on dates indicated. \ 
■ Positions on March 27. 
French >, Eacn Square R epresents a Division L 

B. „ of about 20,000 Men. JTNSIeville + 

CJ German' ^=fcft. Landrecourt 



The attack on Verdun. The German assaults, which began against Verdun on February 21st, continued with fury through the 

spring and summer unabated 



be severely handicapped by this inadequacy 
of railroad transportation. So they would 
have been had not the French General StafF 
recognized the situation and met it by using 
the marvelous French highways, level and 
solid as a floor, for the organization of a sys- 
tem of transportation by motor trucks that, 
by its perfection and efficiency, aroused the 
admiration of all military critics. The trans- 
port service of an army is as important as its 
strategy or its spirit. In fact, neither can 
be maintained if there is failure or delay in 
bringing up reinforcements or munitions. 
At Verdun the French solved the problem 
conclusively. Mr. Frank H. Simonds, editor 
of the New York Tribune, who visited Verdun 
in the midst of the siege, thus describes with 
convincing vividness the nature and appear- 
ance of this transport service • 

"To understand the real problem of the 
defence of Verdun you must realize that 



"It was this that made the defence of the 
town next to impossible. Partially to rem- 
edy the defect the French had reconstructed 
a local highway running from St. Dizier by 
Bar-le-Duc to Verdun beyond the reach 
of German artillery. To-day an army of a 
quarter of a million of men, the enormous 
parks of heavy artillery, and field guns — 
everything is supplied by this one road and 
by motor transport. 

"Coming north from St. Dizier we entered 
this vast procession. Mile after mile the 
caravan stretched on, fifty miles with hardly 
a break of a hundred feet between trucks. 
Paris 'buses, turned into vehicles to bear fresh 
meat; new motor trucks built to carry thirty- 
five men and traveling in companies, regi- 
ments, brigades; wagons from the hood of 
which soldiers, bound to replace the killed 
and wounded of yesterday, looked down upon 
you, calmly but unsmilingly. From St. 



THE NATIONS AT W A R 



277 



Dizier to Verdun the impression was of that 
of the machinery by which logs are carried 
to the saw in a mill. You felt unconsciously, 
yet unmistakably, that you were' looking, not 
upon automobiles, not upon separate trucks, 
but upon some vast and intricate system of 
belts and 
benches that 
were steadily, 
swiftly, surely 
carrying all 
this vast ma- 
terial, carry- 
ing men and 
munitions 
and supplies, 
everything 
human and 
inanimate, to 
that vast, 
grinding mill 
which was be- 
yond the hills, 
the crushing 
machine 
which worked 
with equal re- 
morselessness 
upon men and 
upon things. 

"Now and 
again, too, 
over the hills 
came the Red 
Cross ambu- 
lances; they 
passed you 
returning 
from the front 
and bringing 
within their 
c a r efully 
closed walls 
the finished 
product, the 
fruits of the 
day's grinding, or a fraction thereof. And 
about the whole thing there was a sense of 
the mechanical rather than the human, some- 
thing that suggested an automatic, a ma- 
chine-driven, movement; it was as if an unseen 
system of belts and engines and levers guided, 
moved, propelled this long procession upward 
and ever toward the mysterious front where 
the knives or the axes or the grinding stones 
did their work. 




Glad to be out of the trenches. French troops enjoying a period of repose in the 
rear after service in the trenches in front of Verdun 



"Night came down upon us along the road 
and brought a new impression. Mile on 
mile over the hills and round the curves, 
disappearing in the woods, reappearing on 
the distant summits of the hills, each showing 
a rear light that wagged crazily on the hori- 
zon, this huge 
c a r a v a n 
(low ed on- 
ward, while in 
the villages 
and on the 
hillsides 
c a m p f i res 
flashed up and 
the tacts 01 
the figures of 
the soldiers 
could be seen 
now clearly 
and no w 
dimly. But 
all else was 
subordinated 
to the line of 
moving trans- 
ports. Some- 
where far oft 
at one end of 
the procession 
there was bat- 
tle; some- 
where down 
below at the 
other end 
there was 
peace. I here 
all the re- 
sources, the 
life blood, the 
treasure in 
men and in 
riches of 
France were 
concentrating 
and collect- 
ing, were being fed into this motor fleet, 
which like baskets on ropes was carrying 
it forward to the end of the line and then 
bringing back what remained, or for the most 
part coming back empty, for more — for more 
lives and more treasure. 

"It was full night when our car came down 
the curved grades into Bar-le-Duc, halted 
at the corner, where soldiers performed the 
work of traffic policemen and steadily guided 



2 7 8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Colored troops fight tor France. Part ol a regiment from 1 unis, on the march in the Argonne, are on their way to reenforce 

the defenders ot \ erdun 



the caravan toward the road marked by a 
canvas sign lighted within bv a single candle 
and bearing the one word, 'Verdun.' All 
night, too, the rumble of the passing trans- 
port filled the air and the little hotel shook 
with the jar of the heavy trucks, for neither 
by day nor by night is there a halt in the 
motor transport, and the sound of this 
grinding is never low. 

"It was little more than daylight when 




The rolling kitchen stops for lunch. At the end of a long, hard 
soup are ready for the men and do much to keep up 



we took the road again, with a thirty-mile 
drive to Verdun before us. Almost immedi- 
ately we turned into the Verdun route we 
met again the caravan of automobiles, 
of camions, as the French say- It still 
flowed on without break. Now, too, we 
entered the main road, the one road to 
Verdun, the road that had been built by the 
French army against just such an attack as 
was now in progress. The road was as wide 
as Fifth Avenue, as 
smooth as asphalt — a 
road that, when peace 
comes, if it ever does, 
will delight the motor- 
ist. Despite the traffic 
it had to bear, it was in 
perfect repair, and sol- 
diers in uniform sat by 
the side breaking stone 
and preparing metal to 
keep it so." 

Verdun, built on a hill 
on the bank of the River 
Aleuse, which at this 
point flows nearly north 
and south, was sur- 
rounded by a circle of 
higher hills. On the 
crests of these are 
perched twenty-four 
permanent forts, mak- 



march hot coffee and hot 
their morale 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



m 




A halt in front of Hartmansweilerkopf. A company of the Foreign Legion in Alsace. The high hill in the background is Hart- 
mansweilerkopf, about which the battle has raged at intervals for two years 

ing a circle with a five-mile radius and nor technical report of that titanic contest 

the city for the centre. But it was not is possible. It was a war rather than a battle, 

about these forts, with one or two exceptions, In it were involved from first to last not less 

that the battle raged. By this period of the than 2,000,000 soldiers with such an equip- 

war it had been too thoroughly demonstrated ment for war as the world had never before 



that fixed fortifications were of but little 
value, and that a defence only five or six 
miles from the citadel was no defence what- 
soever. Accordingly the true French defence 
was in three lines of earthworks, with the 
usual wire entangle- 
ments, thrown out eight 
or ten miles beyond 
the ring of fixed forts 
and forming a bow 
nearly seventy-five miles 
long from Bourelles, 
west of Verdun, to 
Combres far to the 
southeast. A multitude 
of little villages were 
included in this line, and 
back of it were the 
twenty-four forts so that 
the detailed story of the 
battle, which at the end 
of eight months is still 
in progress, is filled with 
confusing names of lo- 
calities most of which 
may well be omitted 
here. Indeed no detailed 



known. At the moment of writing these 
lines it is still in progress — though momen- 
tarily with less activity on the part of the 
Germans — having lasted eight months with- 
out interruption. When the Battle of the 




Fourth of July parry at the front. Some of the American members of the Legion 
waiting for their train near Rheims 



>8o 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 







A view near Verdun. These cutis of 240 millimetre calibre are mounted on specially constructed steel cars From winch they arc 
fired. Note the curious, mottled way in which they arc painted. This is to render them less visible to aerial scouts 



Aisne was fought steadily for twenty-two 
days in 1914 the world wondered, and pointed 
to it as the longest sustained conflict of 
modern history — Mukden which determined 
the issue of the Russo-Japanese War having 
lasted twenty days, and Gettysburg which 
saved the Union but three. The Aisne was 
a drawn battle. Verdun was fought to bar 
further prog- 
ress of the 
Germans to- 
ward Paris. 
So long as 
that barrier 
is effective, 
as it is to- 
day, it is no 
drawn battle 
but a French 
victory. 

The first 
German at- 
tack was di- 
r e c t e d 
against the 
sector dom- 
inated bv 
Fort Dou- 
a u m o n t . 
That fort it- 
self, though 
giving its 
name to the 
seven and a 
half miles of 
front of 




the idea of building a dummy gun out of papers sent to the soldiers at the front, and the 
result is shown in the photograph. It looks like a 240 millimetre gun, and concealed 
in a wood, will be spotted by enemy aviators and will draw many shells from their big 
guns. But no one will be hurt 



which it was the centre, had been dismantled 
and its guns mounted in the neighboring 
trenches. The attack begun soon after sun- 
rise of a bitter winter's morning with a furi- 
ous fire from the closely packed German bat- 
teries. French aviators flying over the 
enemy's lines declared that it was impossible 
to note the position of the different batteries, 

the cannon 
stood almost 
wheel to 
wheel in one 
continuous 
line. The 
shells flying 
up into the 
air looked 
like a salvo 
of thousands 
of rockets in 
some great 
celebration. 
But their fall 
released sti- 
flinggases,or 
the strange 
fumes that 
brought 
floods of 
tears to the 
eyes of all 
who came in 
contact with 
them, 01 
liquid fire 
that burned 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



281 



and seared every object within reach and re- 
fused to be extinguished by any ordinary 
means. Only the more commonplace shells 
scattered shrapnel by the thousand or jagged 
pieces of metal to rend and slay their victims. 
Over the line of batteries floated a number 
of captive balloons 
from which observers 
telephoned to gun- 
ners below directions 
for the- rectification 
of their aim. No safe 
post this, for the 
French gunners and 
the French aircraft 
made the balloons 
their target with fre- 
quent fatal effects. 
"Our first lines were 
almost levelled by 
this avalanche of 
steel" writes one of 
the French officers. 
"Trenches, parapets, 
shelters, no matter 
how well made, were 
utterly destroyed." 

This end attained, 
the infantry attack 
followed. First re- 
connoitring groups of 
about fifteen men 
each, then larger de- 
tachments armed 
with hand grenades, 
and after them the 
solid masses of the 
unapproachable Ger- 
man infantry. In the 
face of this assault 
the defenders stood 
firm. In the crushed 
and shattered rem- 
nants of their 
trenches, in the craters made by the great 
shells, they crouched low, working their rifles 
and their machine guns. Death stalked 
through both lines. A French soldier in the 
trenches at Douaumont wrote for the Paris 
Figaro a description of the fighting that smells 
of the very explosives and the blood itself. 
It is violently French, of course, and full of 
defiance and contempt for the enemy, but 
as a battle picture it has life and undoubt- 
edly truth: 

"Despite the horror of it, despite the 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 

The French government presents a commemorative dip- 
loma to the families of French citizens killed in the war. This 
is a reproduction of the parchment issued in memory of the 
first Frenchman who fell in the Great War 



ceaseless flow of blood, one wants to see. 
One's soul wants to feed on the sight of the 
brute Bodies falling I stopped on the 
ground for hours, and when I closed my eyes 
I saw the whole picture again. The guns 
are firing at 200 and 300 yards, and shrapnel 
is exploding with a 
crash, scything them 
down. Our men hold 
their ground; our 
machine guns keep to 
their work, and yet 
they advance 

"Near me, as I lie 
in the mud, there is a 
giant wrapped in one 
of our uniforms with 
a steel helmet on his 
head. He seems to be 
dead, he is so abso- 
lutely still. At a 
given moment the 
Bodies are quite close 
to us. Despite the 
noise of the guns one 
can hear their oaths 
and their shouts as 
they strike. Then the 
giant next to me 
jumps up, and with 
a voice like a stentor 
shouts "Hierda! Hier 
da!" Mechanically 
some of us get up. 
(My wound, which 
had been dressed, left 
me free and I had 
forgotten.) I was 
unarmed, and so I 
struck him with my 
steel helmet and he 
dropped, with his 
head broken. An of- 
ficer who was passing 
sees the incident and takes off the man's 
coat. Below is a German uniform. Where 
had the spy come from and how had he got 
there?" 

Early in the battle the French were driven 
from their first line of defence. Their own 
writers insist that this was the plan of strat- 
egy previously determined upon. They com- 
pare it to the retreat from Mons and the ulti- 
mate halt to win a victory upon the Marne. 
The theory sounds like an afterthought, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




One of the villages on the environs of Verdun showing a parade of r 

on the outskirts of the 



ed French troops prior to relieving their comrades 



illage 



and it is vastly more probable that the first 
four days at Verdun were in fact a series of 
well-earned victories for the Germans. At 
any rate, in that period they had driven the 
defenders from their first line, had taken the 
villages of Haumont, Brabant, and La 




Cnpvrislit by fnderw 

of 75 mm. shells are stored here, but not for long for ammunitin 
disappears as rapidly as snow and rain 



Wavrille. Every foot of their advance was 
savagely contested, for the French were 
fighting to hold the foe back until their 
own reserves could come up. 

Douaumont, the immediate German ob- 
jective — village and fort both — had been 
pounded out of any 
semblance of form. 
It was no longer a 
fortress, but a mass 
of shattered ma- 
sonry. It was no 
longer a little typi- 
cal French village, 
with its streets of 
closely built stone 
houses, its church, 
public square, and 
cheerful cafes. It 
was a wilderness, a 
ghastly skeleton of 
a town peopled only 
by corpses. Yet 
such as it was the 
Germans coveted it 
— or rather were im- 
pelled with a fierce 
purpose to make 
that the point of 
piercing the French 



t Verdun 



THE 




A laden ambulance passing through Verdun on tin 



opyrlghi u Underuood & Underwood 



the base hospital 



lines. Saturday and Sunday, the 25th and 
26th, the struggle around this point became 
more violent and sanguinary. "The enemy 
no longer count their sacrifices,'' said one of 
the French reports of the day, chronicling a 
commonplace, for at no time during the war 
did the Germans 
count the price in 
human life they paid 
for a position they 
were determined to 
t;;ke. And as a re- 
sult a party of 
Brandenburgers did 
cut their way into 
the ruins of the old 
fort and the word 
went out from the 
General StafF to all 
the world that "the 
armored fort of 
Douaumont, the 
cornerstone o the 
French defence of 
Verdun, has been 
carried by a Brand- 
enburg regiment." 
But the triumph 
was for but a little 
while. Sweeping 



back into action the French captured the vil- 
lage and enveloped the Bavarians helplessly 
imprisoned in a useless fort. For the next 
week the tide of battle swept back and 
forth with now the Germans, then the 
French, in possession of the group of ruins 




French infantrymen .pending th 



Hess church in the environs of Verdun 



284 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




called Douaumont. Month succeeded month, 
and as late as August the armies were still 
fighting savagely over the scene of desola- 
tion and death. 

Somewhat east of Douaumont lay the fort 
and village of Vaux. Not as powerful a 
fortress as the former, even in the days when 
both were formidable, this post early at- 
tracted the German attacks. Success and 
failure alternated for several days. Tens of 
thousands of lives on either side were sacri- 
ficed for what was in effect but a single link 
in an armor of defence. With occasional 



intermissions the fighting went 
on unabated until June 7th 
when, after a particularly sav- 
age attack, and a bombard- 
ment of almost incredible 
ferocity, the fort fell. A docu- 
ment found on a German 
prisoner showed that General 
Falkenhayn (then chief of the 
German General Staff) had 
ordered that the fort must be 
taken at whatever hazard and 
however great the cost. Every 
engine of warfare — gas, liquid 
fire, and lachrymal bombs — 
was employed, and the as- 
sailants came on in rows to be 
laid on the field like swathes 
from the scythe of the reaper. 
So gallant was the defence 
made by Major Raynal, its 
leader, that in the midst of it 
he was made a commander of the Legion of 
Honor. But the next day the fort fell for 
lack of food and water, and the gallant 
Major was sent to a German internment 
camp. It is pleasant to learn that the 
Crown Prince himself was so impressed by 
the heroism of the defence that he gave 
orders that Major Raynal's sword should 
not be taken from him. 



I 




\ Rcii Cross depot in nuns 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



An inconclusive battle last- 
ing eight months, and in which 
more than 500,000 men have 
been sacrificed, is unique in 
the history of warfare. But 
that, in a phrase, is the story 
of the Battle of Verdun. Dur- 
ing the first two weeks the 
Germans seemed to be carry- 
ing all before them, but the 
fact was that the French were 
retiring from weak positions 
to stronger ones, and when 
confronted by the latter the 
Germans stopped. Only the 
capture of Vaux was added to 
their earlier laurels as the 
months rolled by 

Undoubtedly the salvation 
of Verdun was largely due to 
the perfection of the new 
"French 75s" a type of artil- 
lery hardly known at the beginning of the 
war when the big "Busy Berthas" of Krupp 
and the great Austrian howitzers held first 
place as engines of death. A correspondent 
of the London Times visiting the field at 
Verdun gives this lively description of a bat- 
tery of these guns in action: 

"When I asked the General to be shown a 
battery of 75s every face in the group of 




A street in Verdun atte 



r six iiiunt 



officers beamed. Winding through the woods 
was a tiny trail, and this we followed until we 
emerged into a little clearing. A look dis- 
closed the hiding place of a battery I was 
escorted by the young Captain in charge into 
the nest of one of these guns. Squatted com- 
placently on its haunches, its alert little 
nose peered expectantly out of a curtain 
of brush. If there ever was a weapon which 




Douaumnunt 



Copyright by Underwood A: I'ndenvood 

French aeroplane rlyine at a great altitude 



286 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




What a soldier sees through a trench periscope 

had a personality it is surely this gun. Other 
field guns seem to me to be cynical and 
sinister, but this gun, like the French them- 
selves, has nothing malevolent or morose 
about it. It is serious, to be sure, but its 
whole atmosphere is one of cheerful readiness 
to serve. Its killing is a part of its imper- 
sonal duty, as indeed one feels to be the case 
with the clean, gentlemanly soldiers of France. 
They kill to save France, not because they 
have the lust of slaughter. 



"With a speed of fire of thirty shells to 
the minute and with a well-trained crew 
serving it with clockwork regularity, it 
resembles a machine gun rather than a 
field piece in action. So exquisite is the 
adjustment of the recoil that a coin or even a 
glass of water can be placed on the wheel 
while in action without being jarred off. 

"In one of the Russian battles one of 
their batteries fired 525 rounds to the gun 
in a single day, which seemed to me at that 
time an extraordinary rate of fire. When I 
mentioned this to the Captain, he laughinglv 
replied, 'I have fired from this (four-gun) 
battery 3,100 rounds of shells in forty-five 
minutes.' I listened to him in amazement. 
'How long do your guns last at that rate?' 
I asked him, for the theory before the war 
was that a field piece did not have a life 
exceeding 8,000 to 10,000 rounds of fire. 
The officer placed his hand affectionately 
on the gun that we were inspecting. 'This 
is a brand-new gun which I have just re- 
ceived,' he said. 'The one whose place it 
has taken had fired more than 30,000 shells 
and still was not entirely finished.' Then he 
added, 'You are surprised at my speed of 
fire, but there have been 75s in this war that 
have fired 1,600 rounds in a single day.' 
From the guns he took me to his magazine 
and showed me tier upon tier of brightly 
polished, high-explosive, and shrapnel shells 
King ready for use." 




A French device for breaking through wire entanglemen. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



As the weeks wore on the determination 
to hold Verdun to the end became a fixed 
thought in the mind of the French people. 
Whatever of value it had had at first as a 
strategic point was now discounted by line 
after line of new defences constructed in the 
rear by the French to receive their troops and 
beat back the enemy in case the main Verdun 
line should be carried. But the French were 
obsessed by the idea that that line never should 
be carried. It was a dead town. Its homes 
and shops were mere masses of ruins. Its 
Place d'Armes was desolate and abandoned 
though little scarred by shell fire. It was 
there that the Crown Prince was to have re- 
ceived the surrender of the town at the hands 
of the defeated French general. There the 
Kaiser was to stand and decorate once again 
his favorite son. The square is there but 
neither Kaiser nor Crown Prince has yet 
visited it, and over it the tricolor still waves 
defiantly. 

For the last two months of the Battle of 
Verdun the persistence of the German attacks 
in the face of their tremendous losses per- 
plexed the military world. To strategists 
it seemed that whatever value the spot had 
ever possessed was gone, with the time dur- 
ing which the French had been permitted to 
prepare new lines of defence should these be 
broken. Yet day after day and week after 
week the solid ranks of German infantry 
were hurled against such points as Dead 




Another view through the trench periscope 

Man's Hill (L'Homme Mor;) or the Wood of 
the Crows, or Fort Vaux. They changed 
their attack to the opposite side of the Meuse, 
but found, there, too, that the French had 
erected such works that no military power 
could possibly dislodge them. By the 9th 
of April the regularity with which the 
French repelled every attack had convinced 
all the world outside of Germany that Verdun 
would never be taken. From that time on 
the operations, except for the storming of 





VERDUN IN RUINS PH0T0GRA1 
The portion of Verdun around the little open square, where t 




FROM A FRENCH AEROPLANE 

of shrubbery is seen, has suffered most from German shell 



pyright by Underwood Si Underwood 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



A big grenade of the rocket type 



Fort Vaux, took on the character of a siege, 
with only occasional attacks. Reluctantly 
the German war authorities were compelled 
to inform the people that the Verdun attack 
which had been expected to end the war had 
ended only in failure. Perhaps it was to defer 
or to minimize the effect of this confession 
that a pretence of activity against the French 
lines was kept up until long after the war 
entered upon its third year. 

The French had one great incentive to the 
desperate defence of Verdun of which the 
non-military world had no knowledge. The 
war had now been in progress for eighteen 
months or more, and the greatest flaw in the 
strategy of the Allies had been the failure of 
systematic cooperation. The Allies' fronts 
were far separated, one from the other, with- 
out those close communications such as 
would make complete unity of action possible. 
The Teutons were surrounded — a situation 
which has its terrors to the non-military 
mind, but is not without its advantages. 
The belligerent thus situated has shorter 
lines of communication than its foes, and, 
unless attacked simultaneously on all sides 
can shift its troops from a front not menaced 




stink-pots 



is the same — to confuse and overpower the enemy so that an attack can be made upon him before he recovers 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



291 



to one which the ene:ny is assaulting. This 
Germany had done systematically since the 
beginning of the war. Her legions were 
rushed from France to save East Prussia in 
1 914. They were hurried from East Prus- 
sia after Hindenburg's victory down into 
Galicia to rescue Austro-Hungary from the 
Russian drive. They sped back to Flanders 
to check the French effort to flank Von 
Kluck's right wing and cut his communica- 
tions. Outnumbered as a whole by their 
enemies, the Teutons by virtue of their 
shorter lines were usually able to outnumber 
them at any particular point of attack. 

Late in the winter of 1916 a conference of 
the Allied leaders undertook to provide for 
more perfect cooperation between their arm- 
ies. Great drives were planned for the spring 
by the French, Italian, and Russian armies 
each in its own field of operation, and all to be 
conducted simultaneously. This menacing 
program Germany thought might be headed 
off by a brilliant success at Verdun. Even 
if complete success could not be won, a 
continuance of the savage attacks there 
would tie up so great a part of the French 
army as to compel the abandonment of the 




at night 




The revival of the steel helmet. French soldiers wearing head armor of a pattern almost identical with that of helmets worn 
in England after the No man conquest. They are highly efficient in deflecting rifle bullets ami shrapnel bullets 



292 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




the ruins ot the Bishc 



Photo by Paul Thompson 



drive planned for the more western battle men whom the French could safely devote 
area, or at least cut down the number of the to that purpose. If this were indeed the 

reason for the pertinacity of the 
German attack at Verdun those 
who accepted it were misled. 
Even while the fighting at that 
point was at its fiercest the Anglo- 
French offensive was launched 
July 1, 1916. It was at first di- 
rected against the German lines 
on both sides of the Somme op- 
posite Peronne. At that moment 
the Russians had just taken 
Czernowitz and were resistlesslv 
rolling on toward Lemberg. Far- 
ther south the Italians were push- 
ing into the Trentino and their 
guns were thundering down upon 
Gorizia, destined soon to fall. In 
the Balkans the British, French, 
Italians, and Serbians were mass- 
ing at Salonika preparatory to a 
drive northward through Servia 
to the Austrian line. On no single 
frontier could the Teuton armies 
gain any rest. From no line or 
sector could the Kaiser withdraw 
any troops to succor a spot more 

German fire rockets illuminating an enemy position menaced, for every rOOt 01 the 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



293 




• 






long Teutonic line needed all the force that 
could be exerted there to withstand the pres- 
sure of the enemy. At no time during the 
war did the outlook for the Central Powers 
seem so desperate. It had its result in the 
determination of Roumania to join the Allied 
cause, and the virtual surrender of the Greek 
government to Allied influence to which the 
people of that kingdom had already given 
their active sympathy. 

Nevertheless the Germans continued their 
bloody and seemingly suicidal assaults at 
Verdun until the historian is tempted to say, 
as General Bosquet said of the Charge of 
the Light Brigade, "It is magnificent, but 
it is not war." 

It is proper, however, to say 
here that the Germans had not, 
up to August, 1916, conceded that 
the capture of Verdun was im- 
possible. They not only hoped 
for ultimate success, but insisted 
that the French were losing more 
in the defence than they in the 
attack, and finally that the con- 
tinuance of the battle was worth 
all it cost them by diverting the 
1' rench attention from other fronts. 

The French nation, however, 



never felt any apprehension of the fall of 
Verdun after the middle of May, 1916. The 



I he German "flammen- 
werfer" utilizes exactly 
the same ingredients as 
the Greek used in "Greek 
Fire" in the defence of 
Constantinople in 1453 




294 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Swiss troops guarding their frontier against transgression by 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



29S 



stern defiance "They shall not pass," which 
the army had adopted as a watchword in the 
early days of the assault, was accepted there- 
after as the mere statement of a truism, abun- 
dantly demonstrated and easily maintained. 

The Allied drive of the Franco-British 
forces in Picardy, which began July 1st, did 
not for a time produce the effective results 
which the nations involved had hoped for. 
Great Britain had at last proclaimed herself 
fully prepared. To the volunteer force 



French took up the line near Montauban, 
and extended it to the southward across a 
similar country, intersected by the River 
Somme, which their armies had to span. 
The whole country was dotted with little 
villages whose stone walls and houses made 
favorable defences against the attacking 
forces. The names of the hapless hamlets 
still exist, but they themselves are now but 
mere heaps of ruins. French they were, but 
French shells had to rend them out of all 




Copyright Lij Underwood & Underwood 

Verdun aviation camp as seen from a French aeroplane 



raised by Lord Derby were added the con- 
scripts recruited and trained by Earl Kitch- 
ener. For the first time the store of muni- 
tions was plenteous, a tribute to the effi- 
ciency of Lloyd George. Sir Douglas Haig 
led the British forces, General Foch the 
French, while supreme command over both 
was exercised by General Joffre. The line 
on which the British operated may be called 
the Bapaume line, after the little town of 
that name. It was about eleven and a half 
miles long, extending over a slightly rolling 
country, plentifully sprinkled with villages 
and orchards. When the armies first settled 
upon it like a blight the land was covered 
with wheat fields, poppies, and beets. The 



semblance of form that the Germans who 
tenanted them might be driven out. 

At the beginning the British carried all 
before them. Pozieres, Contralmaison, and 
Longueval fell to their advancing hosts. 
The Germans were strong in their defence. 
In clumps of woodland, in ruined houses, and 
stone barns they hid machine guns and trench 
mortars. But this resistance was beaten 
down by the cannonade. Germans were 
buried alive, in their dugouts and cellars, by 
the explosion of the monster shells which 
made a mountain where there had been a 
cellar, or a crater where there had been a hill. 
At Montauban the Teutons had such a net- 
work of trenches, traverses, redoubts, and 



296 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



communications, all guarded by barbed wire, 
that no infantry could have assaulted it and 
lived. What the British shells did to it is 
vividly described by Philip Gibbs, a war 
correspondent: 

"It was the most frightful convulsion of 
the earth that the eyes of man could see. 
The bombardment of the British guns tossed 



must lie buried there. But some had been 
left in spite of the upheaval of the earth 
around them, and into some of these I 
crept down, impelled by the strong, grim 
spell of those little dark rooms below where 
German soldiers lived only a few days ago. 

"The little square rooms were fitted up 
with relics of German officers and men. 
Tables were strewn with papers. On wooden 




In l>y Underwood & Underwood 



Brave firemen fiihrinj; a fire lighted by incendiary shells in Verdun 



all these earthworks into vast rubbish heaps 
and made this ground a vast series of shell 
craters so deep and so broad that it is like a 
field of extinct volcanoes. The ground rose 
and fell in enormous waves of brown earth, 
so that standing above one crater I saw be- 
fore me these solid billows with thirty feet 
of slopes stretching away like a sea frozen 
after a great storm. 

"The British must have hurled hundreds 
if not thousands of shells from their heaviest 
howitzers and long-range guns into this 
stretch of fields. Even many of the dugouts 
going thirty feet below the earth and strongly 
timbered and cemented had been choked with 
the masses of earth so that many dead bodies 



bedsteads lay blue-gray overcoats. Wine 
bottles, photograph albums, furry haver- 
sacks, boots, belts, and kits of every kind all 
had been tumbled together by the British 
soldiers who had come here after the first 
rush to the German trenches and searched 
for men in hiding. In one of the dugouts I 
stumbled against something and fumbled for 
my matches. When I struck a light I saw 
in a corner of the room a German who lay 
curled up with his head on his arms as 
though asleep. I did not stay to look at his 
face, but went up quickly, and yet I went 
down into the others and lingered in one where 
no corpse lay, because of the tragic spirit that 
dwelt there and put its spell on me. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



i 97 



"An incident was told me by a kilted Ser- 
geant as he lay wounded. From one of the 
dugouts came a German officer. He had a 
wild light in his eyes, and carried a great axe. 

'"I surrender,' he said in good English, 
and in broad Scotch the Sergeant told him 
if he had an idea of surrendering it would be 
a good and wise thing to drop his chopper 
first; but the German officer swung it high, 



no more swish of bullets, but only a rising of 
smoke clouds and black dust. 

"Longueval was a heap of charred bricks 
above the ground, but there was still trouble 
below ground before it was firmlv taken. 
There are many cellars in which the Germans 
fought like wolves at bay, and down in the 
darkness of these places men fought savagely, 
seeing only the glint of each other's eyes and 




The village ofVaux after a terrific battle 



and it came like a flash past the Sergeant's 
head. Like a flash also the bayonet did its 
work. 

"While the men were cleaning up the dug- 
outs in the first-line trenches other men 
pressed on and stormed into Longueval vil- 
lage. The great fires there which I had seen 
in the darkness died down, and there was 
only a glow and smoulder of them in the ruins; 
but the machine guns were still chattering. 

"In one broken building there were six 
of them firing through holes in the walls. 
It was a strong redoubt, sweeping the ground 
which had once been a roadway and now was 
a shambles. Scottish soldiers rushed the 
place and flung bombs into it until there was 



feeling for each other's throats, unless there 
were bombs still handy to make a quicker 
ending. 

"It was primitive warfare; cavemen fought 
like that in such darkness, though not with 
bombs, which belong to our age." 

The French, meantime, fighting farther to 
the eastward, were meeting with similar suc- 
cesses. Hardecourt, Curlu, Compierre, and 
Becquincourt fell to their arms. After three 
days of fighting they held as trophies ten 
batteries of heavy artillery, many machine 
guns, and nearly 10,000 prisoners. The 
British by that time had 6,000 prisoners, and 
the captive host increased rapidly day by 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




be booty left behind by the Russians in trenches captured from them by the Germans 



day. A correspondent who visited the French 
lines July 9th gives this description of its 
advanced position near Peronne: 

"As far as the eye can see the view is 
utterly the same: utterly monotonous, noth- 
ing but desolate slopes that once were a 




1 he skeleton work of an underground bomb-proof shelter 



thickly populated French countryside. The 
complete inhumanity of outlook strikes one 
tremendously. Here two great armies are 
at death grips, yet apart from the incessant 
tumult of cannonade and the never-ending 
rows of little smoke clouds — new ones form- 
ing before the preceding ones have time to 
melt — one might be thousands of miles from 
civilization. Our maps areof little assistance. 
Here should be Feuillers, there Flaucourt, 
farther on Assevilliers, but one can dis- 
tinguish nothing save heaps of blackened 
stones that appear through the glasses. 
Even the roads have been swept away 
by the bombardment. Nothing but ditch- 
like trench lines mark the presence of humans. 

"Suddenly voices cried: 'Look over there, 
you can see soldiers.' About half a mile 
before us one sees groups of men like ants 
working busily on the hillside. Through 
the glasses one sees that they are sheltering 
themselves with extraordinary care. Some 
have strange oblong shields like the ancient 
Roman legionaries. Others are grouped under 
a kind of casemate on wheels whose roof 
touches the ground in front rising in a curve 
behind to give room for the w T orkers. Still 
others hide behind a ripple of ground or 
hillocks. 

"All are working furiously with picks and 
shovels. I have been told that the British 
losses have been heightened by an utter dis- 
regard of danger. Even when not engaged 
in attacks our Allies seem still not to realize 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



299 




the necessity of unremitting caution. But 
the French have learned the lesson that 
Verdun hammered home — that the hest 
soldier is he who regards his life as belonging 
to France, something precious, never to be 
risked save when sheer necessity demands it. 
That, combined with the magnificent artil- 
lery service, is the reason why the French 
losses in this battle have been less than half — 
I speak from intimate knowledge — those in 
anv previous French offensive in proportion 
to the number of troops engaged." 

It must not be thought that the Germans 
failed in any degree to oppose the Anglo- 
French advance with equal gallantry. 1 he 
assailants won not a foot of ground without 
paying the price. After the first successful 
rush of the British, continuing for five days, 
further advance on that section of the line 
was checked and the Germans took the 
counter offensive. They did not, however, 
regain anv of the lost territory, nor were they 
able to check the French who advanced stead- 
ily though slowly in the direction of Peronne. 
But the stubborn German resistance had 
compelled a deadlock on all but four and one- 
half out of the twenty and one-half miles of 
battlefront. By the ist of August German 
writers were declaring that the Battle of the 
Somme, as this whole operation had come to 
be known, was a failure, and had degenerated 
into mere trench warfare. At the moment 
their contention was well founded, but 



b-prool dugout 



later activity, in August and September, of 
which this volume cannot treat in detail, 
carried the tricolor again triumphantly for- 
ward. But even at that the announcement 
of the German military authorities that they 
had prepared new defensive positions back of, 
and quite as strong as, their main line, gave 




A busv scene in a trench dugout before Verdun 



3°° 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



A 



r « V 



./ 



* 






■ 



^^^Si**^. 




Copyright by Underwood & L'nderwood 

French soldiers engage in field sports behind lines after fighting in two great Verdun battles 

little promise that the Allied drive would and it was a paradoxical sight to pass for 

result in the early expulsion from France of miles American harvesters, reapers, and 

the invaders. Indeed the determination of binders, and motor threshing machines, 

the Teutons to hold their ground, not for working peacefully within the roar and range 

weeks only but indefinitely, impressed every of the guns. 

observer. A correspondent of the New York "Still another phase of the food war is to 

Times, Mr. Cyril Brown, writes from the be seen here at the front. The aristocratic 

field on this subject 

thus: 1 \* 



"It is worthy of 
notice that Germany's 
defensive fight against 
England, the 'hunger 
war,' is being carried 
right up the trenches. 
Every arable square 
inch in this part of 
France in German hands 
which I have seen is 
under cultivation, and 
promises a bumper crop 
of rye, oats, wheat, and 
barley, little damaged 
by the Battle of the 
Somme except immedi- 
ately back of the 
trenches and about the 
villages which are under 
heavy fire. French 
civilians were already 
busy getting in the har- 
vest, ably assisted by 
the German reserves, 




r<i]v, ri^ht t.y In.ierunod & l'nderwood 

Observation post on the first line at L'Homme Mort 
(Dead Man's Hill) 



old Colonel showed me 
part of his regimental 
piggeries, ten very fat 
grunting hogs, so busy 
eating that they paid no 
attention to the corre- 
spondents or the French 
shells howling overhead. 
The titled swineherd 
told me that each Ger- 
man company at the 
front now has a troop 
of ten hogs to eat up 
its food scraps. Effi- 
ciency could go no 
further. 

"The penultimate 
front and its immediate 
rear are in general more 
important than the first- 
line trenches for sizing 
up the present condition 
and the prospects of the 
modern battle. Here 
the most significant fact 
was the right of the 
'shiller' divisions be- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



30I 




hind the front — the uniformed laborers en- 
gaged in laying line after line of field forti- 
fications, digging and delving as if against 
time. For the Germans, while not admitting 
the necessity, are, nevertheless, preparing to 
defend every foot of French soil by a stand 
every few hundred yards or so. 

"I walked down a _ JM _^______ 

narrow, winding path- 
way through a jungle of 
underbrush full of in- 
fantry reserves. It was 
the strangest gypsy col- 
ony I had seen on any 
front. The men were 
living in galvanized zinc- 
sheds, semi-cylinders 
about ten feet in diam- 
eter, easily transport- 
able, quickly set up, ab- 
solutely rainproof, and 
resembling miniature 
models of the Zeppelin 
hangars. Eight men 
could sleep beneath each 
zinc dome. 

"At first blush there 
seems to be little to 
choose between the 
locked foes. A longer 
study of the great bat- 
tle front from all angles 
tends to correct this im- 
pression, and warrants 




Monument to those who fell in 1870 at Yenlun, i 
garden of the Bishops Palace at Verdun 



the opinion that the margin of Teuton su- 
premacy on the ground is small, but adequate 
for all practical purposes, while in the air it 
is still smaller, but enough to turn the very 
slow scales of battles. II the Teutons can 
maintain this margin of safety — and I saw 
no reason here for believing they could not 
— they have ultimate 
victory in the Battle of 
the Somme clinched." 



When the second year 
of the war closed the 
Battle of the Somme 
was still ragingand bade 
fair to equal the Battle 
of Verdun in its du- 
ration and the sacrifice 
of human life. Like that 
contest it promised 
nothing decisive for the 
year 1916. 

Horrifying though the 
sacrifice of human life 
has been it is only too 
evident that many more 
years of war must be 
fought before either bel- 
ligerent will be crushed 
by loss of life alone. 
Signs of suffering are 
many, of exhaustion 
few. The Austrians, it is 
true, have manifested 



3°2 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Progress made by Anglo-French forces in the Battle of the Somme after six weeks' fighting shown by broken line 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




How the French artillery ban 

weakness by calling boys 
below and men above nor- 
mal military age to the 
colors. But the prodigious 
slaughter in the German 
and French lines does not 
seem to have checked the 
steady oncoming of new 
lighting forces. The Ger- 
mans declare that the 
French are "bled white," 
that the nation is obliter- 
ated, but France neither 
admits it nor manifests 
the irreparable loss to the 
most observant visitor. 
Conservative estimates 
put the losses of the Allies 
in the period including the 
operations around Verdun 
and the Battle of the 
Somme at about these fig- 
ures: 

French 400.000 

British 400.000 

Italians 200.000 

Russians .... 1,000,000 

With approximately 

3,000,000 thus struck from 



3°3 

the Allies' effective forces, 
the Teutonic losses are 
estimated at about 1,750,- 
000 of which 1,000,000 
are chargeable against the 
army rolls ot the Germans 
alone. Though relatively 
less than the losses of the 
Allies, this loss, in pro- 
portion to the total 
strength of the two bel- 
ligerents, is actually 
greater. Competent sta- 
tisticians estimate theTeu- 
tonic loss as 10 per cent, 
of their total fighting force, 
and that of the Allies as 
ahout 7 per cent. For the 
whole war from its begin- 
ning to September, 1916, 
the Allies are believed to 
have lost 10,000,000 and 
the Germans 8,000,000 
men, not all permanently, 
as about 50 per cent, of 
those wounded or missing 
are returned to the ranks. 




Restoring a maimed foot to usefulness. France has taken over for military uses 
the magnificent Grand Palais, in Paris, where so many exhibitions have been held, and 
the upper floors are devoted entirely to hospital treatment for convalescent soldiers 



3°4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



. 





|^3 







S>; -i 



behind the lines at Verdun 



^i*^ ". '•■» 



CHRONOLOGY OF PERIOD TREATED IN CHAPTER X 



(The German attack upon Verdun, beginning February 21, 
[916, was still in progress at the close of the second year ot the 
war, August I, 1916. At the latter date it appeared that 
success could not possibly crown the German efforts. In all 
probably 750,000 men were put out of action in this pro- 
digious conflict. Begun originally by Germany to assure her 
control of the iron mines of Lorraine, and to capture a French 
railroad, the attack came ultimately to be pressed mainly in 
order to give the Crown Prince a chance to win a great triumph. 
Verdun was defended by the French less for its strategic value 
than because its abandonment would be heralded throughout 
the world as a crushing defeat to the Allied cause.) 
February 21. After three days' bombardment 300,000 Ger- 
mans under the Crown Prince attack r rench trenches west "t 

the Meuse. 
February 25. Germans advance over a twenty-mile front on 

both sides of the Meuse where they capture part of Fort de 

Douaumont and then lose it. 
March 30. Germans capture Malancourt. 
March 31. German night attack completes capture of village 

ofVaux, which, on March nth. had been announced as the 

capture of the Fort de Vaux. 
April 3. French in counter-attack retake part of Vaux \ illage. 
A pril 5. Germans capture Haucort, west of the Meuse. 
April 8. French withdraw from Bethmcourt, west ot the 

Meuse. 
April 9. Germans make a general attack over twenty-mile 

front on both sides of the river. 
April 30. Germans make fierce but unsuccessful assault 

against Dead Man's Hill, west of the Meuse. 
May 5 and 6. Fierce bombardment and capture of French 

trenches on north side of Hill 304, west of the Meuse. 
May 8. French lose more trenches at Hill 304, and 1,300 

prisoners. 
May 21. French recover Haudromont quarries, east of Meuse. 
May 22. French recapture part of Fort Douaumont. 
May 24. Germans take Cumieres, west of Meuse, and again 

occupy Fort Douaumont. 
June 1. Germans b;gin a general assault on Fort de Vaux, 

five miles northeast of Verdun City. 



June (1. Germans occupy Fort de Vaux, but take few un- 

wounded prisoners. 
June 12. Germans penetrate advance positions on Hill 321, 

four miles from \ erdun. 
June 15. French win at Le Mort Homme and Caillette Wood. 
June 22. French recover ground between Fumin and Chenois 

Woods and Germans are repulsed at Hill 321. 
July 1-29. Germans gain footing at Thiaumont work. Dam- 
loup redoubt, and Hills 304, 295, Le Mort Homme, and 265, 
only to be excluded by the French with great slaughter. 
Germans remove 300,000 men for service on the Somme 
and the great Verdun offensive comes to a deadlock, tem- 
porary or final. 

(The Franco-British offensive, which began July I, 1916, 
north and south of the Somme, is directed against German 
railway communications. Its ultimate purpose is to force 
the retirement of the Germans from France. As late as 
September it was still in progress and almost uniformly suc- 
cessful along its line. At that time more than 150 square 
miles of French territory had been redeemed.) 

July 1. Franco-British offensive begins north and south of 
the Somme after a bombardment by the British of the whole 
front from Ypres to the Somme for five days, interspersed 
by night raids with the taking of prisoners. 

July 2-10. British take Fricourt, Ovillers, and La Boisselle, 
and reach Contalmaison; the French capture five towns on 
the way to Peronne, cut the railway to Chaulnes, and take 
Hill 97 overlooking Peronne. 

July 11-12. British and French casualties placed at 3,000; 
Germans at 150,000. British advance through Trones 
Wood, leveling all defences, and cover a twelve-mile front 
to a depth of five miles. The French penetrate on a front 
of six miles to a depth of six miles. German reinforcements 
arrive from before Verdun. 

July 21-29. The British storm and level Delville Wood and 
take Contalmaison and Pozieres and push on over the Albert- 
Bapaume Road northeast and occupy all of Longueval. 
The French meet German counter-attacks south of the 
Somme, establish a new- line south of Soyecourt, and bom- 
bard Peronne. 



3 of) 



T HE NATIONS A T W A R 




CHAPTER XI 



WARS ECHOES IN ASIA \ND AKRICA — LOYALTY OF BRITISH COLONIES — REBEL- 
LION IN IRELAND -THE AERIAL WAR — CASE OF MISS CAVELL —COST OF IHK WAR 




"yJ^Gr low Sea 

I or in the 
An Iii,!i ,i] s,.|.!i, i in [',.,,,, , d e P T I' S 
of the 
Kamerunian forests. Guns 
roared at Tsing-tau because 
politicians at Westminster 
or Wilhelmstrasse pulled 
the strings. 

This fighting in far-dis- 
tant lands was uniformly 
unfavorable to Germany 
mainly because it was war- 
fare in which naval force 
was the decisive factor, and 
the British navy was all 
powerful. But these scat- 
tered operations were prac- 
tically without any effect 
whatsoever on the final out- 
come of the war. Indeed it 
has been suggested that it 
might have been better h 
Great Britain, instead oft 



CARCELY was 
war declared 
when the thun- 
der of the Ger- 
man guns at 
Liege was echoed 
from every one 
of the f o u r 
quarters of the 
globe. Peoples 
that scarcely knew 
whether Servia was in 
Europe or Asia rushed 
to arms as the result 
of the assassination of 
Austria's Arch Duke. 
Men to whom Belgium 
meant no more than 
Ooonalaska tore at 
each other's throats on 
the banks of the Yel- 



Mr. Asquith, Prime Minister of Great 
Britain, photographed with his small son 
in his garden by Mr. Hare 



pending her energies in China, Mesopotamia, 
and Africa concentrated all her forces 
upon the fighting in France where the 
outcome of the gigantic struggle must ulti- 
mately be determined. But the criticism 
hardly holds. The campaigns in Mesopo- 
tamia were needful for the protection of the 
East Indian frontier, and the British armies 
in Palestine were sent thither to guard the 
Suez Canal. On the China coast most of the 
fighting was left to the Japanese, who had 
a very immediate interest there, while the 
invasion and subjection of the German col- 
onies in Africa was necessary in order to 
furnish the Allies with captured territory 
to use as a set-off to the German conquests 
when the peace conference with its bartering 
should begin. 

How considerable were these conquered 
German colonies may be judged by a state- 
ment made in the House of Commons by A. 
Bonar Law, British Colonial Sec- 
retary, that at that time, July 
14, 1915, the Allies occupied 
German colonial possessions 
amounting to 450,000 
square miles. Most of this 
land was in South Africa 
where at the beginning of 
the war Germany held more 
than a million square miles 
in the regions of Togoland, 
Kamerun, Southwest 
Africa, and East Africa. 
Wild, indeed, and with but 
a sparse settling of Euro- 
peans along the coast and 
the rivers, is this territory, 
but it is nevertheless an em- 
pire in the making, worth 
struggling for. Should the 
determined drives of the 
Allies on the plains of 
Flanders and the hills of 
Champagne be unavailing 




3 o8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Canadians crossing a newly constructed pontoon bridge at a Canadian training camp 



to drive the Teutons from their po- 
sitions in Belgium and France, then 
these broad expanses of African plains 
and forests will in the final settlement 
be offered as part payment for the Ger- 
man surrender of their fruits of con- 
quest. On the other hand, should the 
Allies clear France and Belgium by force 
of arms this mighty sub-tropical empire 
will be theirs. This is one reason why 
talk of peace at the end of the second 
year of war was discouraged in the 
chancelleries of the Allies. 

It is impossible to describe the cam- 
paigns bv which the Germans were ut- 
terly stripped of their colonial posses- 
sions. The blows of the Allies fell fast, 
and were of irresistible force. The 
colonies to go first were the insular 
possessions in the Pacific wFiich were 
speedily taken by the colonial troops of 
Australia and New Zealand — destined 
later, in connection with the Can- 
adians, to win fame for their prowess at 
Gallipoli and in Flanders under the nick- 
name of "The Anzacs." Japan aided in 
stripping Germany of her Asiatic insular 
possessions most of which were turned 
over to Australia, though some naval 
bases, like Tsing-tau were held by the 
subjects of the Mikado. British and 
French troops together took Togoland 
on the north shore of the Gulf of Guinea. 




Annanite Troops on their way to Camp Gallieni, near Versailles 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



3<=>9 




Southwest Africa was overrun by the 
Boers under General Botha, who sixteen 
years before had headed the Boer 
rebellion against British suzereignty. 
Kamerum — larger than France and 
Germany combined — and German East 
Africa were better prepared for defence 
than any other outlying station of Ger- 
man Imperial power. They were heavily 
garrisoned by both German and native 
troops amply equipped, and were in 
communication with Germany by many 
wireless stations. In Kamerum the 
campaign for subjection was conducted 
by the British and French in unison. 
Complete success was attained by the 
surrender of the last German post, 
Mora, February 18, 1916. It is believed 
that the captured territory will be di- 
vided equally between the victors. In 
German East Africa the defenders had 
established fortified posts all over the 
country defended by about 50,000 native 
troops with German officers. The rugged 
character of the terrain, the dense 
jungles, the narrow trails through the 
impermeable undergrowth held easily by 
a single machine gun against all comers, 
gave the defence a notable advantage. 
The attack was left to Boer troops, led 
by General Smuts, who, like General 
Botha, had been a revolutionist during 
the Boer War. Late in the struggle 




An ancient and beautiful arch over one of Jerusalem's streets 



3'° 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





THE NATIONS AT WAR 311 

Belgian and Portuguese col- 
onies from their contiguous 
territory joined in the in- 
vasion. In August, 1916, 
Southeast Africa was not 
entirely subdued, but the 
military situation there left 
no doubt that German au- 
thority would be obliterated 4 
by the end of the year. I ^ *Jk c; v i ^ 

Kur whili tin German^. |! M/Kk J^9tEe±__^. ~m r- ■ L ^ JW^^ 
had been losing colonies, f MvSfr " .^^HlSS^SW I jlv^* A^Bfc 1 ^F* 
they had been raking and L^JTW' xm ^^^ Wr*J&!$t <$& li W 1 

belonging to the £ X*S2^P*~3^*^E M^^mwm^ - f ^f"""""^*"** '^j 

powers with whom they r^g/w^S^/£\ %W '"~j?- /,^ J^ -^- 

were at war. The balance c* lm&^****\ 15^' r 

sheet of lost and won was ^^T>^ ^ j*£, wkiY •<^ 1 jL 

not so unequal as the para- »^fc> T^^f^f* ^^ ^M\ X'^M^ J 
graphs on the colonial war- ' ' 3^'jL ^l^aWmmMWt J" •*' 
fare would indicate. At ■ — ^ ,J&Sk Ct ■ -"V 
the end of the second year 
of war the belligerent pow- 
ers were in possession of The Cana()ian cont ; ng ent was completely equipped by the Dominion govern- 
tlie following extents OI mcn t and sailed for England with horses, field guns, small arms, hospital corps, com- 
teri'ltOl'leS not previously missary equipment, ammunition and every detail ready for active service. Even a 
classified as theirs: motorcycle corps for dispatch riding was included 

AREA NORMAL lft'I\ lr»l_ ' - k\W W jfiS 

SQUARE MILES POPULATION HA4 ■ . ISwmW MM 

i^HRP^^Hv MM IKS' 

Russia . ... .112.01X1 5,350,000 ^ - ».'W MWBM §M^ 
Germany I Including Belgium, part of France, ._^__^ K^AwmMmm 

and a great area in Russian Poland) . . 127,000 29.000,000 ^^B RW « ^^^B^KMMW 

France 112,600 1,800,000 u Bft(>, ■»*■.»««., " ,'fAfr 

Austria 31,500 3,4(X),000 AWk*Z. 9**&*^. ^W^ A 

Bulgaria 17.000 2,270,000 MU 

1 he patriotic enthusiasm and zeal of the a^^ll^^il^fc*^^5 * ***i^< 

Boers, who had so lateh been in active wai Jj^^ ^^^H ?"» '■/ -^ 

upon Great Britain, was one of a series of 1m- JwS2f5i ^^A*\m^£ ' ■'- 

portant incidents which united to demon- £ — ^fl fete ^^^^J 

strate tin greal power and cohesiveness of ^MmmmmT^k Wkw ^«M ««i 
the British Empire and the loyalt\ of even (B45 

the most distant colonies to the mother 
country. Prior to this war not only did 
Britain's enemies hope, but her friends 
gravely feared, that any serious danger to 
her far-flung empire would be at once at- 
tended by the revolt of some of its colonies 
seeking independence. Such an event was 
confidently looked for by the Teutonic 
powers, and they employed everv possible 

method oi intrigue to arouse rebellion in such B^fll A ^t 

colonies as seemed promising for that end. 
A brief rebellion was indeed stirred up in imjR 

British South Africa among a few ol thi ^H X'^kr — *** 

Boers still nursing the grievance of their 
defeat sixteen years earlier. But it enlisted 

the Support of but few, even of that people, Algerians in street fight 




312 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



OM| - 




French poilus behind \ 

and was in fact put down by Boer troops and 
Boer generals. Like efforts to incite rebel- 
lion in Egypt proved utterly futile. While 
it is known that the Teutons relied greatly 
upon arousing revolution in India, and indeed 
planned their southern drive in Asia Minor 
with this end in view, no serious outbreak 
ever became known to the world. At the 
height of the German advance southward 
there was ap- 
parent a cer- 
tain degree of 
nervousness in 
British com- ! 
ments on the 
Indian situa- 
tion. But this 
wholly disap- 
peared as the 
year wore on. 

The record 
ot Australia, 
New Zealand, 
and Canada in 
the war was one 
of unqualified 
loyalty, en- 
thusiasm, and 
sacrifice. The 




The end of the charge. Bomb throwers who headed a rush on the German 
trenches. To do this is almost certain death, and yet there are always plenty 
of volunteers when the call comes 



iting to go into action 

Anzacs, as the soldiers of these colonies were 
called, set the high-water mark for bravery 
and efficiency in the British lines. Volunteers 
all — for the conscription in England did not 
extend to the colonies — they came in ever- 
increasing numbers and won the highest 
plaudits for their soldierly qualities. 

The most serious break in the record of 
British loyalty occurred in Ireland. The 
Irish question 
is one that 
Great Britain 
has ever with 
her and that 
many hold will 
not be settled 
except by 
granting com- 
plete indepen- 
dence to the 
Irish, a major- 
ity ot whom 
are intolerant 
of British do- 
minion. At 
the moment 
war broke out 
Parliament had 
passed an Irish 



IMlft?^ 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



313 




olunteers arriving at Cape Town 



home rule bill; the Protestants of Ulster 
had armed themselves and threatened to 
resist its enforcement by arms; some Brit- 
ish officers in high command had laid down 
their swords rather than coerce the Ulsterites, 
and many others had threatened to do like- 
wise should the moment of action arrive. 
The homerulers outside of Ulster, taking 
the cue of their adversaries, also armed and 
drilled for ac- 
tion. The out- 
break of war, 
August 1, 1 91 4, 
stopped for the 
moment this 
threatened 
civil war. 

The discon- 
tent of Ireland, 
however, was 
not allayed. 
Though a great 
majority of the 
Irish people 
sympathized 
with the Allies 
the irreconcil- 
able faction led guart i ag ainst gre 
bv the Sinn attacks 




ades, and the barbed wi 



Fein Society, who believe that Ireland should 
be free and independent, seized upon the mo- 
ment to plot a secession from Britain. Un- 
doubtedly both moral and material aid was 
given by Germany. A picturesque figure 
in the revolutionary movements was Sir 
Roger Casement, an Irishman who had 
achieved prominence in the British consular 
service, and had been rewarded for his es- 
pecial effici- 
ency by a pen- 
sion and a title. 
Despite these 
honors Case- 
ment held him- 
self an Irish- 
man rather 
than an Eng- 
lishman. The 
war had hardly 
begun before 
he visited the 
United States 
trying to raise 
fund for an 
Irish revolu- 
tionary move- 
ment. Thence 
he went to 



gs and steel 
tanglements that keep off infantry 



3H 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Germany 
where he 
worked in 
the prison 
camps try- 
ing to induce 
Irish prison- 
ers to relin- 
quish their 
a 1 legiance 
and enlist in 
o rga n i za- 
tions to right 
the Allies. 
He had prac- 
tically no 
success 
whatsoever, 
and then 
turned to 
trying to stir 
up sedition 
in Ireland it- 
self. Though 
he always denied receiving monetary aid from 
Germany, he certainly had the assistance of 
her authorities in his work in the prison 
camps, and at the climax of his career was 
furnished with a German submarine to take 
him to Ireland, and 
an auxiliary cruiser 
laden with arms which 
he hoped to land. But 
fate was against him. 
He was captured in 
the very act of land- 
ing, April 24, 1916, 
and the cruiser with 
its cargo was sunk. 

What Casement 
was planning was 
made clear when the 
news of his capture 
reached Dublin. In- 
stantly the city was 
at war. Members of 
the Sinn Fein Society 
seized the General 
Post Office and tried 
to cut off all tele- 
graphic communi- 
cation with England. 
Armed bands seized 
other buildings cap- 
able of defence and 
soon made them into 



front in France 




Copyright by Underwood & Uhderwi 
French soldiers hrinyinj; in rluir wounded Corporal 



315 

true forts. 
Streets were 
closed by 
barricades 
and many 
p a s sersby 
were shot. 
Dublin 
Castle was 
attacked, 
but the 
rebels were 
beaten off. 
Meantime 
they had 
erected a 
Provisional 
Govern- 
ment, pro- 
claimed the 
Irish Repub- 
lic, and es- 
tablished a 
newspaper 
to defend their cause. 

But that cause was hopeless. In a short 
week the Republic was snuffed out and the 
gallant, if misguided, men who planned it 
had paid for their act with their lives. A 
British gunboat in the 
Liffey shelled the re- 
publicans' fortified 
positions, and a large 
force of troops under 
General Sir John 
Maxwell cleared the 
streets of Dublin of 
the rioters. On Sat- 
urday the provisional 
government ordered 
the republican forces 
to lay down their 
arms. 

In the moment of 
victory the British 
government was mer- 
ciless. Fourteen re- 
publican leaders were 
immediately exe- 
cuted, seventy-three 
sent into penal ser- 
vitude, and 1,706 de- 
ported. Roger Case- 
ment, stripped of his 
title, was tried for 
high treason and 



316 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Rookies getting down to the real 
business of war 



hanged in Pentonville yard. 
There was a wide-spread 
feeling that the Brit- 
ish authorities had been 
wiser had they been more 

f merciful. Certainly they 
left the Irish question, that 
has plagued them for cen- 
turies, more bitter than 
ever. Casement showed so 
many evidences of an un- 
balanced mind that to spare 
lim would have seemed 
only an act of ordinary hu- 
manity, and the high per- 
sonal character of those or- 
dered to summary execu- 
^ ninwi _ / t i o n r 

mm^fa^mmmmmmic w itllOU t 

trial, cer- 
tainly would have justified 
clemency. A certain degree 
of resentment was aroused in 
other lands and a great meet- 
ing in New York thanked " the Government of 
Germany for extending to Ireland as fast as 
the present military situation will permit the 
same kind of aid as was rendered to the in- 
fant American Republic by France." 




»£&i* <r ** f 



French troops practicing with the rifle behind the firing line 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



3i7 



It was but seldom, however, that the charge 
of deliberate inhumanity was brought against 
either the French or British authorities. 
When such a charge was made against any 
of the belligerents the one accused gave 
evidence of the potency of public opinion by 
the earnestness of its endeavors to disprove 
the charge. The 
case of the Red 
Cross nurse, Edith 
Cavell, put to death 
hurriedly and al- 
most secretly by the 
German authorities 
in Brussels stirred 
the whole civilized 
world. 

Miss Cavell, a 
woman of English 
birth, was serving as 
a nurse in one of the 
Red Cross hospitals 
in Brussels during 
the German occu- 
pation of that city. 
In October, 191 5, 
she was arrested, 
charged with having 
helped many Eng- 
lish and some Bel- 
gian soldiers to cross 
the line into Hol- 
land, whence some 
of them were able to 
get back to England. 
The offence was 
clearly a crime under 
German military 
law, and was admit- 
ted by Miss Cavell. 
But the Germans 
not only inflicted 

upon her the extreme penalty of death, but 
conducted her trial and execution in a way 
that shocked humanity and aroused bitter re- 
sentment in England and the United States as 
well. Toward the United States Minister to 
Brussels, Brand Whitlock, who appealed for a 
commutation of sentence, or at least a delay 
in executing it, the Germans took an attitude 
at once arrogant and deceptive. They con- 
cealed as long as possible the fact that sen- 
tence had been passed, and did all in their 
power to have the execution over before 
the United States Minister should know of it. 
Sentenced at five o'clock in the afternoon. 



Miss Cavell was shot dead at two the nex: 
morning. She was denied prior to the trial 
the opportunity to consult with her counsel 
— who had been designated for her by those 
intent upon her death — and prior to her ex- 
ecution she was refused a consultation with 
her own clergyman. Her foes provided both 




Boy scout pointing through a r 



ined window of Whitby Abbey to the sea whence the German 
raiders fired 

her legal and her spiritual advisers. In the 
brief space between the sentence and execu- 
tion Minister Whitlock made an earnest 
appeal for clemency basing his right to speak 
upon the fact that at the moment the United 
States Ambassadors in London, Paris, and St. 
Petersburg were protecting German interests 
and succoring German citizens in those lands. 
Moreover, even then, the United States was 
one of the greatest forces in the work of feed- 
ing devastated Belgium — a task which by all 
the dictates of humanity should have been 
performed by Germany. None the less Mr. 
Whitlock's appeal was ignored and the sen- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




General Ferdinand Koch, Commander of the French armies on the Somme 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



319 




The Allies shipped Serbian refugees by the thousands to Corsica, where arrangements wc 
others were sent to Italy and some to France 

tencc executed without 
an instant's delay. In 
a war which has cost 
its millions of lives and 
in which innumerable 
women have met fates 
more inhuman and 
more frightful than 
that of Miss Cavell, 
this incident caused an 
expression of world- 
wide public condemna- 
tion vastly more vig- 
orous than its seeming 
importance warranted. 
In the United States 
especially the callous 
indifference to the ap- 
peals of our Minister 
caused bitter feeling 
against German mili- 
tarism. 

There is much reason 
to believe that certain 
incidents of her sub- 
marine and aircraft 
warfare cost Germany 
more by awaking the 
hostility of neutrals 
than she gained in mih- 
tarv advantage. It 



made to shelter and feed 



Many 




The map shows German possessions in Africa before the 
war. The area of Togoland is 33,000 square miles. Ger- 
many's other African possessions were the Cameroon Pro- 
tectorate, 191,000 square miles; German Southwest Africa, 
322,000 square miles, and German East Africa, 384,000 
square miles. Germany has lost practically all this territory 
in the war. As the chief economic force pressing Germany 
Into the war was the need for colonies to provide for a 
rapidly increasing population, the loss of this great African 
field will be a serious blow 



was apparent enough 
as the months passed 
by that German of- 
ficial opinion had come 
to regard the sinking 
of the Lusitania as a 
blunder. It did not 
check for an hour the 
service of passenger 
ships between the 
United States and bel- 
ligerent ports; it did 
not delay or reduce the 
shipments of munitions 
of war, but it did bring 
the United States to 
the verge of entrance 
upon the war, and 
build up a body of 
anti-German senti- 
ment in this country 
that was for a time 
menacing. It may be 
noted in passing that 
Great Britain later by 
vexatious, arrogant, 
hurtful, and unwar- 
rantable interference 
with our foreign trade 
arid our mails did much 
to neutralize this senti- 



320 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




M- Raymond Poincare, President of France 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



321 




Moving reinforcements toward the French tre 



merit by creating an anti-British sentiment al- 
most as strong. Indeed while the first year of 
the war closed with the United States and 
Germany on the verge of a serious break, 
the second year had hardly ended when Con- 
gress, by formal legislation, authorized the 



President to employ the armed forces of the 
nation to compel Great Britain to respect the 
sanctity of our mails, and cease unwarrant- 
able interference with American commerce 
on the high seas. 

The German use of Zeppelins, or dirigible 




French reserves on the way to the trenches 



322 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




General H. Joseph Jacques Cesaire Joffre, who prepared the French army to meet what he considered the inevitable conflict, and 

is now directing the machine he created 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



3.23 



balloons, also cre- 
ated a certain hos- 
tile sentiment to 
that nation among 
neutral peoples. In 
one respect the use 
of aircraft almost 
revolutionized strat- 
egy in this war. The 
aeroplanes, with 
which in differing 
types all the bellig- 
erents, after the 
earliest days, were 
about equally pro- 
vided, put an end 

to secrecy in warfare. Scouting above the 
enemies' lines they detected masked batter- 
ies, noted the movement of troops, checked 
surprises, made cavalry scouts practically 
useless. No nation will ever hereafter fail 
to include a great fleet of flyers of the aero- 
plane type in its military establishment. 

But the dirigibles which the Germans had 
brought to the point, of greatest perfection 
in their Zeppelins have not yet proved their 
worth. Marvelous machines as they are, 
and likely to be adapted to peaceful uses after 




Training Kitchener's "mob" 



rush the Germans, a lesson that 
i'ed useful 



the war, they have 
as yet made no rec- 
ord of notable mili- 
tary achievement. 
It is quite true that 
as the Zeppelins 
were exclusively in 
German hands, and 
most of the avenues 
of publicity con- 
trolled by the Allies, 
a great veil of silence 
has been flung about 
some of the rumored 
exploits of the Zep- 
pelins. There is no 
authenticated case of a Zeppelin successfully 
attacking a trench, a fort, or inflicting seri- 
ous damage upon a battleship. Though re- 
peated raids have been made upon England 
no great military base has suffered from 

Zeppelin 
bombs. Civ- 
ilian prop- 
erty em- 
ployed for 
peaceful 
uses, and 
c i v i 

ves, often 
those of wo- 
rn e n a n d 




ut down a Zeppelin 



324 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 






press 




of high explosive shells struck 



children, have been the main victims. Along 
the crowded battlelines of Flanders, Picardy, 
Champagne, and t^e Verdun region the 
"Zeps" have done nothing. They even, for 
some unexplained reason, abandoned attacks 
upon Paris after the first months of the war. 
Their repeated raids upon England have 



served no imaginable 
military purpose, un- 
less it has been to im- 
the German 
people that the 
horrors of war 
were being 
brought home 
to the English. 
As against this 
has been the fact 
that in neutral 
lands the Zep- 
pelin raids have 
spread the idea 
that to Germans 
dropping bombs 
on a hospital, 
or killing women 
and children in 
a theatre, is worthy 
of national applause. 

Who can estimate 
the cost of the War of 
the Nations? With 
precision indeed we 
can set down the amount the warring govern- 
ments have borrowed, the ships they have 
lost, the number of square miles of territory 
they have ravaged, the number of human 
lives they have sacrificed, the number of the 
lame, the halt, and the blind their infernal 
machines of mutilation and death have 



no explosion 




Taking captured ammunition to a place of safety 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



325 



turned out to make a 
miserable way through 
such years of life as 
are left them. But 
there is no way 
of estimating its 
material cost in 
the almost com- 
plete interrup- 
tion of useful 
industry and 
industrial prog- 
ress for years, 
or its aesthetic 
cost in the de- 
struction of the 
beautiful cities 
of Flanders with 
their irreplace- 
able monuments 
of Gothic art like the 
Cathedral at Rheims, 
the Cloth Hall at 
Ypres, the library at 
Louvain, and the 
Town Hall at Furnes. 
The obliteration by 

Russians and Germans, at one for once in 
the devilish work of destruction, of the quaint 
and picturesque towns of Poland inflicted, 
too, a loss to which mere figures furnish no 
adequate index. But above all the im- 
measurable losses is the spiritual loss to all 
mankind by the substitution of international 




French pi 



>ilus hastily constructing a trench 

hatred, individual callousness to other's 
agony, rough and brutal irresponsibility, 
contempt tor property, for beauty, for human 
rights, and for human life for the kindly ideals 
of peace. The virtues of war are often close 
parallels to the vices of peace, while as to the 
vices of war they find no parallel outside hell. 




.-' -' ^ 






v^v|^s^r>>^r.i 



This little pile of guns repre 



Hi.led 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The strong man of Great Britain, David Lloyd George, Minister of Munitions in the British cabinet, is the man to whom the 

nation has turned in its difficulties 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



327 



There are observers of the years of war in liquor question was complicated by politics, 
Europe who hold that their material effect and its results, therefore, less successful. The 
is not wholly hurtful. They point to the utmost that could be effected was a material 
blow struck to the liquor traffic by the string- reduction in the hours during which the pub- 
ent police measures made necessary by regard he houses could be opened. To the amaze- 
to the social welfare. Russia, by employing ment of observers, however, this reduction 
to the fullest its 
autocratic 
power, abolished 
the sale of 
vodka. In a re- 
port printed in 
the summer of 
1916, M. Bark, 
the Russian Fi- 
nance Minister, 
declared that 
everywhere in 
the Empire the 
efficiency of la- 
bor had i n - 
creased, and the 
development of 
trade and in 
dustry had been 
unprecedented. 
The money 
formerly spent 
for vodka was 
being used for 
clothing and 
household neces- 
sities, with the 
result that legit- 
imate trade was 
greatly stimu- 
lated, or was be- 
ing saved as the 
sudden jump in 
savings deposits 
proved. Before 
the overthrow 
of vodka the net 
deposits in the 
national savings 
banks, says the 
Minister of Fi- 
nance, amount- 
ed to from 50,000,000 to 70,000,000 roubles in the hours of selling was not accompanied 
annually; after that epoch-marking order they by any decrease in the quantity of liquor 
reached the amount of 150,000,000 roubles sold. It is probable that the chief material 
monthly. The story could not be better told, good that will be derived by England from 
On every side it is agreed that Russia will the necessities of the war will be the exten- 
emerge from the war a strengthened nation sion of the field of women's work, and the 
both morally and intellectually. greater efficiency that will spring from the 

In England the effort to grapple with the systematic organization of industry. Mor- 




328 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 








THE NATIONS AT WAR 329 

ally there will come to the nation, too, cer- jt^ MBk 

tain advantage from the heavy taxation 5^ 

that has been levied upon large 

incomes. The English leisure class ^^ ^ 1 — -jr. 

was undoubtedly a beautiful pic- w 

ture of social life, and perhaps a _^»2 > * i ■ 

refining social influence. |H£|^^Rj 

however, side by side with the 
squalor and abject poverty ot 
Whitechapel and Seven Dials it 

was not a healthy nor a hopeful HF~ •' tfr A 

symptom. The imposition of an jjH l&9K"'l I? I "Ife*® ^bI V- 
income tax, reaching 50 pei ^^B?- ' P LI 

of exceedingly large incomes, will E^rt^^j* r* ^H 

put an end to much parasitic idle- 
ness and aristocratic snobbery ^^^^^^" 

which had become a menace to Scotch soldiers making barb-wire 
the nation. tanglements 

In considering at this early date, 

with the end of the war not yet in sight, its which it has suffered, and to magnify the 

cost in various ways the reader must bear sacrifices of its enemies. But the following 

in mind that the tables herewith presented tables, prepared in every case by an expert 

are in the main estimates. No government student of the subject, are approximately 

has issued an official statement of its precise correct — probably as nearly accurate as will 

losses or expenditures during the first two be possible for some years after the war has 

years of the war. On the contrary, each one ended : 
is endeavoring to minimize the degree to 

CASUALTIES FOR TWO YEARS OF THE EUROPEAN WAR ESTIMATED 

AT 13,557,627 

f\- WOUNDED TOTAL 

K '^ KILLED OR MISSING CASUALTIES 

yy *„£j* Germany 907,327 2,255,300 3,162,627 

Wf »■■*• -CwV^gaw Austria-Hungary 500.000 1,500,000 2.(KK>.000 

' Ml^. '.-•&>!* < •!-^JbJW*' ■ Turkey 60.000 210.1100 300.000 

.^^■■t 'flL'K^Ht •' Bulgaria 10,000 1 Hi.iiimi 150.0OO 

V WBSK '-. ~'JF- ' France 800.000 1,200.000 2,(X>0,000 

*¥- * - -— Great Britain 150.000 170.000 620.000 

VC^^T , * Ru ia 1,000.000 4,000.000 5,000.000 

"ZJJ.U •J.ilSwiil'^' ' / Italy 35.000 140,000 175.000 

a -j*- Belgium 30,000 120,000 150,000 

ftigf ~"^"(~ Total 3.522,327 10,035,300 13,557,627 

^t^-^i The casualties for the first year were 

*\> k\ 8,673,805. 

In the London Economist a writer endeav- 
ored to translate this vast expenditure of 
"human capital," as he called it, into terms 
of money. Estimating the value of each 
man killed at six years' purchase of his 
average productive value, by which process 
the slain Briton was valued at #3,000, the 
Frenchman at #2,500, and the German at 
#2,250, he fixed the total sacrifice of hu- 
man capital for the two years of war at 
#7,925,000,000 — and this with no allowance 
for sorrow, tears, and human agony which 
baffle the most versatile of statisticians. 

Nor is the tale of sacrifice vet complete. 

Peaceful use tor a rifle. At the front, where commissary *r>i- i • • 1 " U • 

11, Military authorities agree that the war is 

arrangements are sometimes interrupted, soldiers prepare «»•»»«■«" jr ««•"<-_ « & 

their own food. This one is grinding c.ffee with the butt of almost certain to continue for yet another 

hi s Hfle year, and the statisticians fix the number 01 





33 o THE NATIONS AT WAR 

men and boys, now available for 
what the Germans have long 
with brutal frankness called 
"cannon fodder," as follows: 

'-•'I 

PRESENT EFFECTIVES jfflF^ , jj>f t^PQIfLsi' i 

MEN »*- 

Russia 9,000.000 

France ■ . 6.000.000 

Great Britain 5.000.000 

Italy 3,000.000 

Serbia and Belgium 300,000 ^■r^^'. '* *!,"» *A* "* ' W "* JT" 

General Francis V. Greene in ^SSkl&L 
an address at West Point in the gs5>, ' 
latter part of 191 5 made some -*■£* 
striking comparisons between the 

figures of this war and of earlier ' L " cot es 

conflicts in Europe and our own 

country: 4,000,000 wounded, more than 2,000,000 

"The fabled stories," said General Greene, prisoners. We cannot grasp these figures, 
"of the countless hordes who crossed the but we can get some idea of what they mean 
Hellespont with Xerxes and Alexander have by comparing them with the results of pre- 
been far surpassed by the actual numbers of vious wars. We were accustomed to speak of 
the forces engaged in the present conflict, our Civil War as the greatest conflict of mod- 
The figures are certainly startling. In Eu- em times, but apparently it was only one- 
rope 78 per cent, of the population at war; tenth the magnitude of the present conflict, 
in all the world 56 per cent, of the population "At no time did the number of men actu- 

involved in the conflict; 13,000,000 men ally under arms, north and south, exceed 
actually under arms; 2,000,000 killed, nearly 1,300,000, and the total number of those 

killed in battle 
and died of 
wounds on the 
northern side 
was 110,070, and 
on the southern 
(""""f^ ^^ side probably 

jv*? ■/ iflfli 'vM not m " R ' tnan 

f^V Wr^ So.ooo; that 

i ^Sb"* *"""tw ' n ^ our y ears °f 

■~jft war then thede- 

"-^m I b* +j2WVfflbi &^: A a. Wi».^^l^- struction of life 

' u Jli& JvaiHk-* W^r •*>#¥»* was i eS s than 

.rflhdfe 4 '!.'. ^»-eiJ « one-tenth of the 

destruction of 
life during a 
little more than 
one year at the 
present time. In 
the Napoleonic 
fjj wars from 1796 
to I S 1 5 , the 

French gunners and theii "75." The French 75 millimetre field piece 5s a national pet largest a r m y 

ever assembled 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 331 

WAX LOAN Of BELLIGERENT, $40,000,000,000 
SINCE WAR BEGAN 
ENTENTE 

Great Britain 11.000,000.000 

trance ,s.(«LMXX),(XXl 

Kussia 5,853.000,000 

i JL N^ V p^ ^jEk ^^HbV ** .» These figures do nol include extensive war credits. 

|BVv. J " '^B» , ^Pl» Estimate oi "expenditures of five of the Powers from 

i ^v ~**mB^'^^- tti — .-■■ _I>J? V ^i lV I'eRinninK of the war until January 1, l'llli. are 

imf' ^ "l^^B P*i^ ^^"* > ^ -^ .*"*G-Z^&- jj/f as follows: 

V s _^^PiH •* ** ^dfiB^I England $11,000,000,000 

1 *^M- 5 k ».. *V J *5!^L Franc. r.SOO.OOO.IXK) 

• 4« '-J^r^ «Mn2l Germany 8.000.(X)0,0W) 

"^»J ■- Austria .... 5.55O.O0O.OC0 

Z.-'^M lla] y 1.5(X).OO0,0O0 

m _ H^^BBBk; . Total $39,550,000,000 

Thirtv-tvvo shots in two minutes is the record of this gun, one of the French tit . 

>s lo these hgures must be added 

at least #10,000,000,000 which the 
was that which Napoleon led into Russia in nations actually at war expended from their 
1812, and this numbered somewhat in excess annual revenues or by their creation of paper 
of 500,000. The German armies fighting to- money. Moreover, the neutral nations, 
day in Russia on the east and in France on forced through motives of self-preservation 
the west are more than six times as large." to mobilize their armies, have had to borrow 
What the embattled nations spent in nearly half a billion of dollars and have ex- 
money may be partly estimated by what they pended, so it is estimated, about as much 
had to borrow. Exact and official as these more from their current exchequer. The war 
figures are in respect to the loans negotiated, to-day is costing approximately #100,000,000 
they are insufficient to the total expenditures, daily. The borrowing still continues. Such 
All the countries had their "war chests" to a burden of interest-bearing securities \-> be- 
draw upon at 
the outset — Ger- 
many a prodig- 
ious one which 

she supple- \ 

mented by lib- 
eral taxes and 
penalties im- 
posed upon the ^^Bd>* 
unfortunate 1 
towns of Bel- £«■ 
gium and France 
that came under 
German domi- 
nation. But y 
while the record ^»d^_. • 

of loans is nor an ~'W&&t£?i-S&&K' ■ Ji* J Li.il.. ' "" V* '<' - ' V ,i f 

adequate record rj&*F%tf#f ^W?. M HUmto 1 .+ "**?' ^ , 

kurakdoesac- i^i n' ^■ZS'V jfcsl6 £j| « 

ot debt: The c | ep h :lnt f thc c i ouds ne of the French balloons making its descent in the ;m .is the gas 

was escaping 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



citizen taking an intelligent interest in his 
country's welfare. But, important as it is, 
it must for the moment be regarded merely 







The army passes General French 



ing rolled up for future generations in Europe 
to bear upon their shoulders as the mind can 
hardly grasp. In the countries involved now 
in this terrible conflict the burden of taxation 
in future years merely to meet the interest 
account will be so heavy that it hardly 
seems possible for them to tax further for 
public improvements or purposes of general 
welfare. The sins of the fathers, whoever 
they may have been, who plunged Europe 
into the war will bear heavily upon the 
children for many generations yet to come. 

At this moment it is idle to attempt to 
determine the ultimate influence of this 
war upon so- 
ciety, indus- 
try, and com- 
m e r c e in 
either our 
own country 
or any other 
in the days 
after the dec- 
la rat ion of 
peace. That 
speculation 
should be to- 
day the sub- 
ject which 
most engros- 
ses the mind 
of the states- 
man or the 




Field artillery embarking. In the South African forces Boers and British, 
who were a few years ago engaged in a desperate war with each other, are now 
fighting side by side for the British Empire 



as speculative. loo many factors of pro- 
digious operative force enter into the problem 
to make any forecast of its solution possible. 
In the United States the most immediate 
effect of the cessation of the war is likely to 
be manifested in the labor market. That 
will be wholly disorganized. There will 
be a superfluity of labor in occupations of 
one kind, a grave stringency in another. 
The end of the war will mean the closing 
of our munitions factories, which for two 
years have been employing hundreds of 
thousands of skilled workmen, and probably 
the decided restriction of output in factories 

of another 
class whose 
p roducts, 
though not 
technically 
muni t i ons, 
have been de- 
manded in il- 
1 i m i t a b 1 e 
quantities by 
the nations at 
war. 

Prior to the 
war the 
United States 
had for some 
years de- 
manded and 
assimilated 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



yearly a body of im- 
migrants varying from 
900,000 to 1,200,000. 
The latter 
figure was 
that of the 
year the war 
began. The 
year follow- 
ing the num- 
ber dropped to 
326,000. It is 
im p rob able 
that for many 
years to come 
this flood of 
labor will at- 
tain its former 
high water 
mark. 

Upon these 
immigrants 
the United 
States has 
been almost wholly 
pendent for labor 




de- 
fer 



Troop trains at the dock. The South African 
passenger cars are on the European style 



333 

by this war, or who 
have taken a costly part 
in it. Austria-Hungary 
in 1914 sent 
us 278,000 
laborers. In 
the year fol- 
lowing she 
sent 18,000. 
The rest were 
not engaged 
in construc- 
tive work, but 
in destructive 
activities on 
the battlefield. 
Italy and Rus- 
sia were the 
next largest 
sources of sup- 
p 1 y for our 
common labor 
market. 
They can be 
so no more, at least 
for many years to come. 



its mines and upon its great outdoor con- It is only reasonable to apprehend that 
struction work. They lay the roadways of these nations which have given so heavily 
our railroads and keep them in repair. They of their industrious manhood to the remorse- 
construct our great public works, irrigation less machinery of war will after the war is 
systems, roads, and canals. They have ended keep the remnant of their citizens at 
been drawn largely from nations devastated home to take up the work or reconstruction. 








1 he shell that killed him dug his grave. The dead man was once a German grocer in New York 



334 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The Cloth Hall at Ypr< ■ b< fore the war. Ir was reputed to be 
beautiful buildings in Europe 

The governments of Europe are not going to 
lose anything of their autocratic powers as a 
result of years of military rule. 
They will control absolutely 
the lives of their citizens after 
peace as they do now. Al- 
ready in England, German} - , 
and France industry is rapidly 
being organized on a semi- 
military basis, and not merely 
the remuneration and the hours 
of labor of the workmen are 
determined by the government, 
but even their freedom of choice 
of an occupation and their 
right to shift from one calling 
to another is subject to govern- 
mental regulation. 

These governments are cer- 
tain to prohibit their able- 
bodied working-men from leaving their terri- 
tory during the two or three decades when the 



services of every productive 
laborer will be essential for 
the rebuilding of the devastated 
communities. Announcement 
has been made in England that 
the emigration of men even to 
the British colonies will be, 
at least, discouraged, while the 
emigration to independent na- 
tions will most certainly be 
prohibited. Mr. A. Bonar Law, 
the British Colonial Secretary, 
said in an official address, 
"Whatever emigration does 
take place shall be within the 
limits of the British Empire 
and shall not lessen the strength 
of the empire as a whole." And he went 
on to declare that the government would 



of the 




After the first bombai 
the historic : 



place early In November, 

damaged by shells and fire 




ardment, on Novembe 
and fire swept the structu 



probably prohibit emigration to lands without 
the far-reaching borders of the BritishEmpire. 
It is not probable that the 
skilled labor of our factories 
which may be displaced by 
the end of the war demand, will 
be either willing or able to 
take the place of the unskilled 
day laborer whom we have 
been drawing from southeast- 
ern Europe. The managers of 
great constructive enterprises 
have long complained that the 
so-called American labor will 
not do this work and is indeed 
physically unfit for it. Huns, 
Magyars, Czechs, Sicilians, Sar- 
dinians and other south Italian 
removing the roof peoples have long been doing 



HE NATIONS AT WAR 



335 




Ruined town hall at Vpre 



336 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



the heavy work in our mines and on our 
railroads. There is already a serious pinch 
in this labor market which has resulted in 
a temporary cessation of railroad building 
and in increased cost of production in other 
industries. The heads of these great en- 
terprises are seriously disquieted over the 
outlook for the future and it is not im- 
probable that demand may be made for 
the admission of Asiatic coolies to do 
the work which has heretofore been done 
by the European laborers who will be held 
at home. 

Indeed there is some apprehension, based 
to some extent on formal reports gathered 
by railroad and immigration bureaus, that 
the insufficient supply of labor of this char- 
acter that we now have may be still further 
reduced by the return of tens of thousands of 
these workers to their native countries when 
it shall be safe for them so to do. 

Next to the labor situation the industrial 
community in the Emited States regards 
with the greatest apprehension the possi- 





The soldiers' farewell on k 



338 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



bility that the war in Europe may be followed 
by a trade war in which neutrals shall be 
even more hardly treated than they have 
been in the clash of armies and navies. 
Already a formal conference of representa- 




n the Bosphorous near Constantinople 



tives'of the Allied nations has been held in 
Paris at which the delegates pledged their 
respective countries to mutual cooperation 
against the Teutonic countries when peace 
shall have been declared and the struggle 
for trenches shall give way to the struggle 
for trade. This end it is declared is to be 



attained by discriminatory tariffs against 
foes and necessarily also against neutrals, 
by the abolition of the "most favored na- 
tion" clause in their treaties, by the inter- 
change of capital, the amicable partition of 
trade territory and other devices which may 
accomplish a complete cooperation between 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



339 




The world at the end of the second year of w 
in the middle ot German East Africa. The Mack : 
\lhcs; neutral countries are white r 



All ot the German colonics have been conquered except a narrowing strip 
is that now held by rhe Central Powers; the shaded belongs to the Entente 



one set of nations for their advantage and break them down. Business competition 

for the undoing of all outside their com- is hard to control by combinations made 

bination. Opinions differ as to the extent to wholly for the general good. Nevertheless 

which such combinations can be made per- the menace is sufficiently serious to the 

manently effective. Natural law tends to United States to have led Congress to take 




34° 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



34i 



certain preliminary p - for meeting it, 
and to have caused both 'he State and the 
Treasury Departments to discuss it seriously 
from the standpoint of international law 
and obligations, ai a that of the power to 
restrict or en urage trade by tariff legis- 
lation. 

/en if the attempt to bolster up at 

.iican expense the industry and trade 

ot the belligerent nations by methods of 

governmental regulation should fail the 



getting a longer work day by setting the 
clocks ahead one hour has been successfully 
tried. In the field of distribution municipal 
market places, the regulation of prices, 
the careful control by the government of 
supplies and distribution have been adopted 
in every country. The minimum wage and 
other social legislation which prior to the 
war was looked upon as rank socialism have 
all found place on the statute books as 
matters of military necessity. 




The C/-53 as she appeared at Newport when she stopped here on Saturday, October 7, 1916. Members of the crew can be seen 

on the deck of the submarine 



new conditions of industry in countries 
like France, Great Britain, and Germany are 
such as to threaten the United States with 
extremely effective competition. To sup- 
port the war it has been necessary in all 
these countries to put industry on almost a 
military basis. All have found it essential 
to get out of every workman his utmost 
productive capacity; out of every shilling, 
franc, or mark its highest return as productive 
capital. We have seen England reduce the 
drink evil to a minimum, Russia and France 
as well. The hours of labor in France, 
Germany, and England have practically been 
put under government control, and in the 
latter country the drastic regulation for 



Accordingly the nations with whom we 
must compete when peace comes are as 
ready for that competition as Germany was 
for the stern struggle of war when she first 
moved upon stricken Belgium and half- 
prepared France. With them efficiency has 
been the rule for three years of struggle. 
With us the happy rule has been the long- 
accustomed go-as-you-please system of Amer- 
ican industry. Perhaps more than military 
preparedness this question of industrial and 
commercial preparedness for the war for 
markets and trade supremacy should engage 
the attention of American thinkers to-day. 

No writer upon the war can be justi- 
fied at the present moment in predicting its 






34- 



TH E NATIONS AT WAR 



outcome. The strength of Germany has 
been and still is amazing. It is obvious that 
but for her marvelous military and material 
resources the whole fabric of the Teutonic 
alliance would have long ago gone to pieces 
before the assaults of its enemies. How long 
Germany can carry tottering Austria- 
Hungary and bankrupt Bulgaria and Turkey 
it is impossible to conjecture. Enough at 
this moment to say that as the first year 
of the war ended with virtually all its vic- 
tories to be credited to the German arms 
and with the Teutons everywhere conducting 



a spirited offensive againsi he Allies who 
were fighting for tin. <.nd of its second 

year presented the sn lutely re- 

versed. To-day confidence rests with the 
Allies. Their troops have become superior 
in number and equipment. ry- 

where attacking the Teutons . ii 

turn are wholly on the defensn i. [f, as 
Napoleon cynically said, "God is on • 
of the heaviest battalions," the issue of the 
war cannot much longer remain in doubt. 




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